Blue Madonna Painting

I am a San Francisco-based figurative artist and writer. I was born in Oxford, Mississippi and raised in America’s deep south until I was twelve. I spent the majority of my teenage years living between Los Angeles and New York, until finally settling in California’s wine country north of San Francisco. I have a B.F.A. from Art Center College of Design and a M.F.A. from the Academy of Art University, both with honors. I teach figurative courses for the graduate department at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. I have received over forty accolades for my paintings, including ones from: Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Pastel Society of America, Society of Illustrators in Los Angeles, Connecticut Society of Portrait Artists, the Pastel Journal, Northern California Artists Association and University of Oregon. My work has been featured at six museum shows and is collected by civic and educational institutions, as well as private patrons across the United States, Canada and Europe. Writing about art is a big part of my art practice. I am the editor-in-chief of . I have also been published by Palgrave Macmillan, the Military History Quarterly and American Arts Quarterly. My paintings explore the female figure’s movement and transitions through an environment. I work with the concept of duality and multidimension, because I think it represents the contemporary woman’s life. I purposively use one person in similar poses, I look at the interaction the movement and negative spaces create. I use complementary colors to create unity. Solid shapes are contrasted with thin lines, straight edges with curves. Detailed representation is purposely placed in an abstract field. The environments I create are structured to reflect the world upon which we move in and out of every day. My goal is not only to create beauty but to represent women in a positive light. My work crosses both representational and abstraction.