Patchwork with Blue Trees Print

I consider myself a director in the artistic placement of natural features within re-imagined landscapes with magical elements. Yet, when I begin to paint, it is with an intuitive method wherein I become separated from time and space through dissociation. I describe the experience as “when I return there is a painting in front of me". The arrangement of forms is like a concert in an imaginative space, my mind is a type of laboratory where the organic shapes are spontaneously engendered. Spatial harmony and balance happen naturally while I am inside the work. I draw on my emotional memory to a myriad of natural spaces where I lived and backpacked. The work can include weather patterns, mountains, forests, streams, farms, gardens, insects, birds and colonial structures. The patterns and views come from attentive observations of the earth even from childhood. I can lie in a field observing grasses wave in the wind, see mountains in the distance, watch the birds, sit in the woods touching trees while their leaves drift to the ground and insects create motes in the sunlight. The colour palettes I use may appear to be bright, but are usually mixes of imperceptibly greyed hues. I prefer paper, wood panels or linen or cotton/poly blends as my substrates. I tend to like opposites and at times use very smooth backgrounds, and other times build up surfaces to be like rough terrain. Most often my choice of paint is Golden Open acrylic. It has a slowed drying time which allows me to layer, glaze and rework areas much like oil painting. In the finished paintings I hope the viewer gets a sense of freshness and serenity yet is aroused by the pleasurable sensation of tension and movement.