| Figurative |
Portraits |
Landscapes |
Still Life Series |
"Nightlight" Series |
About the Art
These “slice of life” images combine humor, mystery and an element of the bizarre. They are neither intended to soothe with prettiness nor accost with ugliness: rather, the basis is one of ambiguity and subtle distortion. The places are real, the people are real, and the experiences are real. Reality is in fact often more fantastical than fiction; therefore abstraction is not something which one must create…it is all around us.
The intensely personal nature of my style is curiously both universal and timeless. My motivations have stemmed from urban, suburban and rural environments. Whether the subject is a stark landscape, a flamboyant personality, or an ethereal view, the commonplace is quirkishly removed from its normal realm. The goal is for both the sophisticated and the naïve to share the muse of the odd within the ordinary. This ambivalent foundation forces the viewer to walk a fine line between Realism and Surrealism, allowing for interpretation on various levels. What for some remains a genre scene becomes for others a fanciful or even brooding odyssey.
Still Life Series
This series of simple still life studies began in 2002. Rather than the more traditional arrangement of subjects, I chose to concentrate on one or two items at a time. The attention to detail on the objects was contrasted by the soft, gestural blend of nondescript background space. The “Slice of Life” concept takes a literal twist with these pieces.
"Nightlight" Series
I became fascinated with night imagery after taking a series of photographs one year while at a carnival after midnight. The stark contrast of artificial lights against a star-filled sky was simultaneously eerie, intriguing and in some way humorous. My figurative paintings had been for the most part vibrant in terms of color up until this point, while my landscapes tended to be more austere, with mostly muted hues. Concentrating on images which were primarily black or shades thereof was a huge departure for me. I began to see things at night very differently: the tail-lights of a car on the road ahead, industrial settings with billowing smoke against the night sky, moonlit trees. The simplest of things were oddly beautiful, and took on new meaning in the dark of the night.
