Atlantic Surf Painting

American b. 1988 Born and raised in Austin TX Lives and works in Austin TX Color relationships, layering processes, and the use of immiscible materials define my art. My approach to painting originated in childhood with a beloved pre-school and home art activity involving the mixing of wildly varying household cooking ingredients and continued with an art-inspired education throughout grade school and college. Thus, my natural inclination is to experiment with materials and, in recent years, to find new and unique ways of coercing paint infused with metallics into visually captivating versions of natural environments. My current series of paintings, The Melts, presents bodies of water, the sky, and the earth in graphic yet painterly abstractions of waves breaking on the ocean, sun and moonlight on the water, sun-streaked skies, mountain snows, cracking ice, fire, and flowing lava. The water-themed paintings, infused with gold, silver, copper and bronze metallics, engage viewers to experience the glint of sunrise, sunset, and moonlight reflections of color and light on moving water - rolling tides, breaking surf, rippling lake waters, whitewater rapids, waterfalls, and the open sea. Creating a successful painting involves careful timing, gravity, balancing matte and gloss sheen, and strategically weaving the metallic’s light reflective quality into a meaningful context for the environment represented – sea, sky, or earth. Delivering a unique experience of the fleeting interactions of the sun, moon, water, earth, wind, and fire is my goal.