Oil on Panel

The orchestration of idea, material, craft, and aesthetic is composing a symphony. The different instruments lead me more than I lead them. When I’m painting, I use all kinds of tools—hands, brushes, sticks, feathers, rags for wiping. I paint on wood panels because canvas would not stand up to the sheer physicality of the work.

The paintings are very layered; it’s hard to get your mind around just what type of landscape is being presented, and I want to play off that kind of ambiguity. Sometimes the movement and the curves look like something is trying to escape to become a sculpture.

These symbolic metaphors—the floating vessels, archways I call sundoors, and egg-shaped planet heads—reference an evolution. An eclipse face, often half merging, evokes the silent witness, the awakened seer who is drawn to peace.