Porthole View: Tugboat at Twilight Painting

I was born in Munich, Germany and raised in Sioux City, Iowa. I moved to Staten Island, NY in 1982 and now reside in Atlantic Highlands, NJ, on the shores of Sandy Hook Bay. My mixed media paintings are inspired by the persistent beauty found where the natural world gets stressed by humanity. I find that beauty in the geometry and light in a boatyard, the lush tangles of plants against manmade structures, or in the topography of an oyster shell. I approach painting with the sensibility of the sculptor I once was, as though I am building the painting. I paint with acrylics and layer patterned or textured papers throughout with acrylic medium. I choose a deep wooden panel as a matrix, which creates more of a physical presence on a wall, and paint around all the sides, continuing the image and making it change slightly depending on the viewer's position.