Layered Thoughts Painting

My goal is to create gestural paintings with bold colors in an abstract style, inviting the viewer to experience the creative process. Using primarily oil paint, my paintings revolve around contrasting elements, painting subject matter that includes calm settings and introspective figures with vibrant colors and deeply contrasting shades. Also employed are the juxtaposition of opposing textural elements with drips and splashes of paint coexisting with brush strokes and palette knife work leading to thickly applied and thinly scraped areas. These techniques provide textural components that are meant to give the artwork an additional element of interest when viewed from a close perspective. This artwork follows in the style of abstract painters of the mid-20th century. My figurative work is influenced by the paintings of Elmer Bischoff who was part of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. He painted the figure in bold and colorfully abstract ways. The gestural marks that the abstract expressionists left on the canvas allow us, the viewers, to feel that we are there in the moment of the artwork’s creation. My creative process is also laid bare on the canvas to allow the viewer to feel a part of my process. The figure, the earliest subject of my paintings, is a compelling subject that continues to pull me back to examine it. Recently, I have extended my more abstract style to the figure using color fields and lost and found edges. My figurative compositions usually involve a solitary figure, in a calm state of introspection. The use of gestural strokes and wet-on-wet application of paint leads to a feeling of a place not viewed directly but seen as a memory. I live and paint in Mount Dora, Florida.