My work is a direct emotional response. I share through my art - emotions  about everything I encounter in my life.  The works come from my imagination.  "Source material"  is this life I live and everything I know to be in it.  

 

I spent my youngest years in Australia on the Queensland coast. Rolling hills, craggy mountains, beautiful  beaches and fresh air is what I recall of my time and visits there. I do recall them. 

 

After moving to the U.S. with my mother, a majority of my young adult years were had in the piney forests of southern Texas and miles from any coastline. Impressed by the dark woods, droughts, hurricanes, endless stars, stifling heat, thunder and fascinating wildlife, this era played an important role in establishing a close bond with nature for me by virtue of spending so much time alone outside as a child. 

 

Eventually, an interest in music, writing and fringe culture was instrumental in driving me to travel throughout the United States. Finally settling in Austin, Texas a few years later- I began to focus more seriously on my painting, sculpture and mural work. 

 

After Austin, I moved to the Aleutian Islands. The remote, frigid, culturally mesmerizing, breathtaking landscapes, and general experience brought me back to a time when I was younger and lived in a place where being alone outside was the best part of my day. 

 

In somewhat of a full circle, I have returned to Houston, where I currently work full time out of my studio.

Recently, I have been painting mostly landscapes.  I am inclined to paint most of my landscapes in one of two ways. The further I put myself a certain distance from the painting in my mind, the more comforting it is- this also translates to a similar distance literally within the piece from a viewer's perspective. 

 

I relate to those moments of tension when you come over a rise, and you see a distant glow of what ends up becoming a skyline or campfire or something that suggests you are approaching a destination. Those moments are deeply moving & highly personal experiences. I paint what I see when I come over the rise, in my mind. 

 

  Opposite to that, I gravitate toward painting condensed environments like swamps, jungles, the woods, caves… I find a deep consolation in that density. Some work starts with expansive skies- over a tree-line, others  with a thick forest where it's so dark there is no horizon.  I paint what I see when I am far from the rise, in my mind. 

 

  Regardless of what can be imagined or seen in any piece, what I strive for, is not to tell the complete story. I'm not telling you a story. I'm showing you a place. 

 

 

      "... You hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower - and  I don't." ~ Georgia O'Keeffe