" Day of the Dead # 5 " Painting

His father was a cowboy from South Dakota ( a real one ! raising horses and 5,000 laying chickens) and his mother is from England. He grew up in classic American suburbia in Southern California where all the houses are very similar with bright green lawns. However, his house was the one that stood out in the neighborhood because, as the other houses were uniform with their greenery and gardens, his house had a wild and complex British country style garden that baffled the neighbors and cars would stop to view this amazing sight. His eccentric parents would love this and would respond with waving from the kitchen... His brothers were surfers, but he preferred to stay on the beach with lots of Art History books and observe the wealthy, colorful hippies strolling by. He designed textiles for surfing board shorts and skateboarder's apparel for a few years in Los Angeles. He has hand painted countless textile designs for fashion, home, and paper products industries. He has also been a Creative Director for a surface pattern design studio in Manhattan. He lives in Downtown Jersey City which is just across the water from lower Manhattan. He can't live without his daily walks in New York City which spark his imagination with the whirlwind of the odd and exquisite, the ancient and the new... He's influenced by his life in Southern California, Brooklyn, contemporary British graphic art, an early 1980s "New Wave" aesthetic,18th century Japanese woodblock prints, Miroslav Sasek. The primitivism of Oceanic Art ( traditional antique wood sculptures and folk art items ) has had a vast and profound influence not only on his creative view, but also on his soul. The drawings of David Hockney, and the life and art of the skateboarder have all assisted in forming his inner imaginational universe. His work ( especially the portraits ) often express an optimistic sweetness mixed with a complex melancholy and a magical elegance... an eternal intimacy with the midnight garden of the soul...