Trees at the Studio Painting

Landscape painting with a limited palette. The opportunity for immersive experimentation in painting landscapes gives me peace and a sense of fulfillment within myself. The act of painting gives my body a way to physically and mentally revert to a time when art soothed the fresh wounds of my traumas and provided a method of escape from life’s realities. I create emotive and textured landscapes that reflect my deep desire to understand what it means to be alive, to be vital. I use a limited palette of Titanium White, Ivory Black, Pale Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, and Ultramarine applied to stretched canvas or canvas panel. I usually complete paintings with a rapid wet-on-wet method where I forgo a detailed underpainting in preference to a simple sketch and impasto paint application. En plein air, I energetically complete paintings in one to three sessions. Larger paintings are completed in my studio and have an overarching concept, a more structured process, and a planned ending in comparison to the spontaneous nature of my smaller-in-scale plein air paintings. The texture and stylistic qualities produce nonsense at close view, compelling the viewer to observe the whole painting at a distance. Repeating lines and shapes of varying widths and color that create layered values and form, reminiscent of the brushstrokes of J.C. Leyendecker and Vincent Van Gogh, are dominant in my works. Concepts of simplicity, uniformity, limitation, and control are deeply ingrained in the facets of my process. Other concepts focused on in my work include how we interact in and with the natural world; the nuances of life and death; growth and change over time; the ebbs and flows of depression, anxiety, and addiction pertaining to my personal experiences with grief and loss; and the comparable therapeutics of art and nature. In contrast to painting, my drawings usually focus on buildings and manmade structures utilizing straight uniform linework. Aside from creating appealing art depicting scenes from nature, my ultimate goal is to appreciate simplicity through experimentation with materials and technique, and to thoughtfully stimulate the mind.