The art
My latest series of paintings explore the idea of creative impulse. I’m trying to record the origin and development of my process. I’m careful not to overpaint any mark, whether intended or accidental, so the viewer has access to every thought that occurs to me as I develop the work.
The composition, the color, the texture are all spontaneous, with no forethought regarding the direction of the finished piece. By disregarding any preconceived idea, I’m challenging myself to develop the canvas in a way that is honest and immediate. It makes the journey more interesting and sets up problems that employ different talents to resolve.
I’m drawing a series of questions in the form of vignettes onto the canvas and actively creating a visual answer. Ultimately the works reveal my thoughts as I’m painting, and
the pieces become a journal and a travelog of a specific time in my life that I want to document and share.
Since I started hiking the Coachella Valley, my thoughts tend to be on the rich and varied landscapes I’ve explored and the conversations my hiking partners and I have regarding other places we’ve explored throughout our travels.
Life circumstances also end up on the canvas. Their marks on my life are also etched deep into the paint of this series, in ways that might only be recognizable to the people that know me, but can be appreciated by casual viewer.
The artist
My career in the visual arts is wide and varied. From sign painter, graphic artist, illustrator, photo retoucher, industrial designer, art director, creative director and ultimately owning my own design studio and now my own art gallery and fine art studio, I have always been curious about how I could employ my talents and where they might take me.
After a few years in a premed program where I spent most of my time among art books in the libraries where I should have been studying chemistry, I made the decision to go to art school. I was lucky to be in the right place when doors opened and someone let me in.
It has allowed me to travel around the world working on projects that I thought-up in my studio in Manhattan and it has led me to the California desert where I dream up new projects and bring them to life in my Cathedral City studio.