Pointe-Noire Painting

For over 35 years my work has been included in one person, group, juried or invitational exhibitions, in galleries and museums mostly throughout Chicago and the Midwest. Since 1994, I’ve maintained an ongoing series of drawing and painting classes out of my studio, as well as teaching for several Chicago institutions, in Ireland, and since 2010, an annual workshop at Higham Hall College in England’s Lake District. I’ve always approached my work as a kind of investigation driven by curiosity or concern, filtered through the haze of memory, historical event and the weight of cultural production. This has not meant always working along a prescribed path-my interest has never been to produce a “line” of anything-but instead remain open to the possibilities of materials, nuance, and chance, that often result in a very limited but complete body of work. My technique is an evolving one starting with notes and rough sketches that lead to works executed in a variety of media on either paper or canvas. In most works, there is an overlapping process that allows bits and pieces of previous layers to show through and almost randomly lead to the formation of a finished painting. My work is in private, public and corporate collections, and the current body of work has generated grants and fellowships from the City of Chicago, State of Illinois, and the Ragdale Foundation.