For several years I have been walking two parallel paths in my painting — one figurative or "content laden", and the other informed by, if not strictly tied to, landscape. You could say that in the former I explore the inner landscape, and in the latter I riff on the inspirations of the landscape around me.
My figurative work employs iconic and dreamlike imagery. In this work I search for ways to express or explore inner events — emotions, transitions, relationships, etc.
My landscapes are more or less obvious as landscape. They were initially inspired by an intense physical reaction to fall color, a reaction that absolutely demanded to be expressed in the studio. Now that impulse has mellowed to a painting approach within which I have freedom of texture, color and mark--here I am not bound in service to the content as with my figurative work. In these pieces I often employ the scaffold of landscape for structure — perhaps implying a simple horizon line or a series of tree forms — but the pieces often move into abstraction.
Recently my main focus is a small building, a structure in the woods that has been in my paintings before, but since the pandemic has dominated my field of view. My work captures this little structure in different moods and seasons. It’s become a vessel for the big feelings of recent years, also reflecting the natural woodland surrounding it.
You can always see some of my work at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts.
