How Green Was My Valley Painting

Desert landscapes are often environments of pure abstraction, where clarity, emptiness, and silence can simultaneously be a physical and psychological experience. Painting in the desert has helped me to understand that abstraction and representation pervade my art in a permanent interplay, one always harbors characteristics of the other. In that place where the world drops away, I continue to discover innate beauty in the exquisite patterns left by the flow of nature. The Earth is my endless source. Random, arbitrary detail may make some of the abstracts appear as contradictory, unintentional compositions or they may be intentional representation of a reference I recall. As I maintain a relationship with the source material, often the colors suggest a landscape or a hint of horizon. Abstract paintings are made in layers using chance and arbitrariness. Through the construction and deconstruction of paint I create deliberate pictorial structures. Art is my personal alchemy; I use it for healing both body and mind. Art becomes a ritual, a type of consciousness that allows me to enter the cosmic space. The physicality of working on large canvases or supports allows one to interact with creation on a molecular level.