"Arizona River Rocks 10" Painting

I paint what it is like to look at a thing, not what a thing looks like.
Having painted since childhood—long before I truly understood what an artist was—I still view my practice as an ongoing process of self-definition.
Across my journey through Chicago, Washington D.C., New York, Boston, and now the desert landscape outside Phoenix, my commitment to working strictly from life remains absolute.
Whether standing before a vast landscape, a quiet still life, or a live model, my work is rooted entirely in raw human experience.
For me, the physical presence of the paint is vital. I do not polish away the process; instead, I leave brushstrokes and drips fully evident to tell the honest story of the making.
My work separates looking from seeing. Seeing is passive, but looking requires deliberate choice.
Through texture, mark-making, and unrefined materiality, I reject the distance of the mechanized world to create an intimate, unmediated connection between the viewer and the canvas.
I want to compel you to look, not merely to see.