"Tess Rose" Painting

God has put into me a delight for the process of observing truth. When applied to painting, the subject—or the arrangement of shapes which make up that subject—is the truth before me. I am not interested in communicating what I think I should see or even really understanding the nature of the subject. Rather I am interested in seeing what is actually there and, by God's grace and help, faithfully representing those shapes. This does not, however, require highly manufactured, photo-realistic labor. In my opinion, a good painting is, while supported by principles of design, a fresh and honest suggestion of what is seen, which leaves some of the work to the viewer's imagination and familiar memories. Overworking a painting may actually move past effective representation. As Carolus-Duran would say, a painting should express the maximum by means of the minimum. Each stroke is equally important, contributing to the whole, and is dependent upon the dictates of the subject. This process allows me to inductively study what I see while allowing God's gift of creativity to flow out from that foundation. I attribute any failure in this process to myself, while attributing all success to Him. He made the eye, He gives sight, He is the Master Artist; without Him, I can do nothing.

As to my background, I am originally from Chicago and grew up under the encouragement and training of my artist father and math teacher mother. I moved west to Nevada after university and began plein-air painting in the Sierra Nevada. In 2012, my wife and I moved to the UAE where lived and worked until 2018. During that time I had the unique privilege of painting the unpainted and unseen landscape of part of the Arabian Peninsula. We currently live back in Nevada near Lake Tahoe.