Artist's Statement

My paintings are about form, color & light. My inspiration is the sights and colors of my everyday world. My medium is pastels and oil paints.

​

A large body of my work is landscape painting. Many of these are plein air work and the ones that aren’t done on-site are from sketches and photos done during walks in woods and parks. I’ve always loved being outdoors exploring the natural world and my landscape paintings are about the sights, sounds and smells of that experience. I have found myself returning often to a familiar site where I know the “bones” of what I intend to paint which frees me to explore the changing that happens at different times of day, seasons and weathers. I have painted noontime sunlight on trees on a summer day, returned a season later to paint low angled autumn light through the same trees.

​

My still life work is about visual seduction. I can think of no other way to describe it. I chose to paint objects that have a strong visual appeal, with colors and textures that interest me. I strongly prefer organic forms for my subjects—usually fruits and vegetables. I will also use fabric as a further source of visual interest in my paintings.

​

At some point in every successful work I start to look at the painting more than my sources. This is when I make changes based on what I need to do to make the final painting work—what I need to visually pull the viewer into and around the picture.

​

Ultimately my work is about the visual play of color and form on the finished canvas and the mood and moment I am expressing.