Cloud Reflections on Ophelia's Pond #3 Print

I have always been an adventurer. As a child I never had the discipline to sit still and draw. I could consistently be found outside seeking new trees to climb, fields to discover and unspoiled nature to look for treasures the outdoors offered. In my later years, after retiring from a successful career in marketing, advertising and sales, that same spirit came through while I explored new territory in color and technique. Although I have experienced some success in landscapes, my work has increasingly evolved into abstract and expressionism. It’s where I find total freedom in developing my “brand”, so to speak. To me, branding is creating emotion. When you watch a Publix commercial, there are no food or grocery store images. Their ads are sometimes sappy, sometimes schmaltzy but with few exceptions, leave you with a good feeling and a positive vibe towards the chain of stores. That’s branding. Publix knows how to tap into sentiment and that there’s something to be said about what you feel. In my work, I strive to evoke emotion whether in representational art or abstract through color, intensity, texture, and juxtaposition of shapes. It involves a sensitivity that reaches beyond the hues and the threads of a canvas and outward expressions. It’s what you don’t see that creates the energy --the “hook” that reaches out and plucks empathy from the viewer. My approach to painting has always been tinged with studies in metaphysics. Thin layers of paint overlap, merge, combine, morph...and develop into a work of art. It’s my vision of how ‘reality’ works—overlapping energies merge, combine, morph…and create what we see. And then it’s manipulated by our brain, personal histories, higher self or whatever you call your inner being. An extension of those beliefs can be found in my abstract series [“Rip Tide”, “When I Met You” and “Thoughtful Drifting”]. In these works I build rivers of energies that meander through color, shape and intensity. The result? Something is conjured in the viewer. Good, bad or indifferent, I’ve triggered a feeling whether consciously or unconsciously. It’s been said that the space between thoughts connects us to the collective. In my opinion, that’s what art should do—catch you off guard before a thought appears, reach deep into the bowels of the soul and link to a timeless universe.