09.09
The content of my new work explores the bathroom, a universal experience that all humanity shares.  This body of work also addresses the process of painting and the illusion of space.  What does paint do as a material?  What makes it unique?  How much illusion is enough and how much manipulation of space is too much?  Working with paint is akin to trying to juggle water.  I intentionally piece together different images that cannot exist in the real world, but only in my painted world.  Multiple angles, subtle moves, dripping solvent and textured surfaces combine to make an image that does not translate into a digital format well, but asks the viewer to spend time with the painting and experience it as a physical process. The paintings help me to slow down as I make them.  The layering forces me to let the paint dry.  I want the viewer to feel and see this.  In the process, I try to give an inanimate object a sense of animation, time, space and  surprise.

09.07
Letter to an art critic
As an artist I am keenly aware that once the work of art leaves my studio I have little control over how it is interpreted. Some art requires an enormous awareness and education in order to be fully experienced. Mine does not. I accept this.

When I start a series of work, I look for inspiration as a starting point. I do not
claim to be overtly conceptual or political, nor do I attempt to convince the audience of my vision. I also do not require the audience to be "informed" in order to experience the art. The new work started with "Imperfect Thirst" as an influence. To me, Kinnell's prose is very visual and rooted in the human condition. I am easily transported to a similar space portrayed in the poetry. I use both formal drawing and painting techniques to build the images and the inspiration of the writings to guide some of those decisions. Perhaps the mood or drama of an image stems from a passage in one of the poems.

The title of the collection "Imperfect Thirst" refers to a suspension of disbelief. In
order to see the oasis you must believe in the mirage. If you doubt or disregard the experience it may be due to the imperfection of your thirst. The works in the show rely on the viewer believing in the space, light, and sense of human presence (or lack thereof) in order to engage with the pieces. My use of collage is a surprise component of the piece that, at first glance, is not easily observed. Once recognized, the collage challenges the viewer to see the illusion of the 3-dimensional space or "oasis," rather than hold on to the idea of paper adhered to a flat surface. My hope is that the spaces feel familiar, perhaps reminiscent of a memory or time. It is this attempt to create a lived-in environment, and thus imperfect environment, that connects to the familiarity of the poetry.

As for the question regarding Constable and Whistler, both of whom I greatly admire, their work, rather than their commentary, speaks for itself. In my opinion, as with my work, there is no conceptual knowledge base required to engage with these particular artists' work. Writers write, musicians make music and painters paint.

06.07
Fresh out of graduate school I worked as a carpenter in New England exploring
and rebuilding old colonial homes. The houses, comprised of small rooms and dark spaces, smelled of history and memories. I had never before experienced physical space with such overt marks of time and place, and my fascination with these spaces still informs my work to this day. What once was my hammer
and nails have become the brush and ink that I now build the physicality
of interior space on 2-dimensional surfaces.

My current body of work consists of drawings made from rooms in houses
which intrigue me. I have become acutely aware of how light and shadow constantly change in interior spaces and I try to capture and convey the feeling of light and time in space. Using sumi ink, brush, pen and collage I build spaces on paper that begin to transcend the flatness of the paper and become 3-dimensional
moments of lived-in space. The drawing often begin with the familiar and evolve to become something more. They transform into environments that I imagine
entering. I am most satisfied with a piece when the collage elements blend seamlessly within the image, invisible as collage, yet function to reestablish light and surface.

05.05
With one foot deeply rooted in the tradition of representational painting and one striving to reinterpret a modernist aesthetic, I paint images that are approachable and personal. As realism is not my goal, I am influenced by the works of Wayne Thiebaud, David Park, Richard Diebenkorn and Max Beckman, artists who use observation as a point of departure rather than a final destination.

Representation is merely a starting point for the work as I push the scale, manipulate the ground plane, tweak color and invent a dramatic point of view. My intention is to create images that move beyond the formal qualities of observational art; composition, light, color, materials and space are a spring board to a new place that transcends formal representation.

05.04
I am a Modernist living in a Postmodern time. My peers in the art world are typically reactionary; they commonly counter the concepts of conventional beauty, illusion, and the tradition of perceptual painting. As a traditionalist I respond to the inability of modern society to slow down, to look, and to see. To that end, I feel compelled to create images that slow the process of viewing without suggesting a one-line interpretation. The answer to this task lies in the realization that painting inherently contains all time and no time simultaneously; it is the accumulation of moments and also the presentation of one event.

I initially conceive a piece as an idea, perhaps simply a color relationship or an image from an experience. Over time this initial concept evolves and the piece begins to take on its own life and demands. It becomes an accumulation of marks where each piece of paint or drawing gesture tells of a past moment, a specific point in time, a moment of hesitation, confidence, uncertainty, experimentation, accident, and resolution. It is this search for transcendence in time that drives my desire to make art.