Fire on the Beach Painting

Born Fall River, Massachusetts USA I make paintings of powerful women, the sea, mysterious encounters, and uncommon places. These works occupy a mythic place in our consciousness, and question what we know about the world. Most of the settings of my paintings are imaginary. Many are composites of remembered places from my childhood. I also chronicle my environment and all my travels in photographs. I combine landscapes, seascapes, people, architecture, creatures and all sorts of odd details that have never existed together in reality. I have always drawn and painted the figure, but I love the geometry of patterns, and creating skies on the cusp of change. Especially in my larger work, my viewpoint is just outside the picture plane – one more step and you feel as if you can enter the narrative of the painting. Birds, especially seabirds, have long been choreographed into my work, sometimes as companions, other times as avatars of change, growth, or escape. The conjunction of women and birds placed in enigmatic landscapes evokes an especially vivid dream, and asks “what is real?”