being a creative

I am a life long dedicated decorator and fine art painter who started creating with oils on canvas in 2004. I averaged about a painting per year until 2015 when I decided to paint full time. Now, I create 4 to 5 paintings a month.

my style is bright, luxurious, and emotional

My teenage years to mid-thirties were spent either without direction, or on the path of another person. When I started painting, I found a natural and enjoyable way to learn about the world around me. And after a time, I learned quite a lot about myself as well. There are two major parts to my creative process.

First, I go out into the wild parts of nature, and listen to the land.

The natural world will guide my growth

I walk slowly, and follow enticing animal trails. I stop when the wind tells me to, and focus on opening all my senses to receive natures’ message. The second part happens in the studio where I use reference photos, memory and imagination to interpret the symbolic language of the wild on canvas. Oil paint is my staple medium, and I enjoy slow, methodical building up of layers, and thick palette knife work. The addition of found objects, other pigments, hand cut stencils and spray paint, or totems gifted from the land complete each piece of art.

How we perceive the visual world, both physically and psychologically drives my curiosity.

Light effects color as it moves through space, highlighting subjects and compositions in ways that capture our attention. I explore all this through my process of studying and representing animals, plants and vistas. Through exaggeration of size, color, and contrast, the parts that interest me are emphasized. For example, the diffusing of light can be shown as the dark shadows becoming lighter and more gray or blue as they go back in the picture plane. Blue distant hills are a favorite and recurring element of mine, in addition to scenes with the excitement of something to discover, like rolling hills or blind corners. I combine this visual language of the painter with the symbolic language of nature to create something that is both beautiful and useful.

what i paint

Currently, my favorite media includes oil and gouache on paper, canvas and wood. I’m best known for my imaginative and colorful intimate portraits of flora and fauna. The painting subjects are created in a realistic style and placed in loose, vibrant, and imagined environments. My work has appeared in several juried group shows across the U.S., and my first solo show “Progression of the North American Diet” was at Monterey History & Art Association: Salvador Dali in December 2019.