"If you need a place to go, take any road.™"

I am a Philadelphia painter working primarily with oil on canvas.

I think we all see the world a little differently and feel our own experience uniquely.  I paint using what all of my senses have given to me as the experience.  When I paint the sky, I am feeling the wind, putting it to music in my head, remembering the smell of the chance of rain, tasting the air, seeing the clouds dance.  Some skies reveal the swirl of life’s emotions that can be found in the movement of the clouds, ranging from fear to hope, foreboding to resolve, trepidation to acceptance…a sky that is still and silent but portending a change that will send it racing with a ferocity toward you as it begs you watch, stop, and not be afraid.  Take any road encourages the viewer to have the confidence to experience life no matter how difficult or confusing.

I paint emotions and stories, often blooming in bursts and dashes of color.  My landscapes are built up of layers into rhythmic cadences and dissonance, complexity and suggestion, through a painterly surface tension that resolves into a lyrical narrative.  Poetry, not prose.  I use loose and free brush marks in my work to show the dramatic light and energy that both represent and define the tension and optimism of life.  I infuse my feelings of joy, playfulness, empathy, and hope into the story, a composition that responds to the mood and tempo of a place.  My paintings are purposely not detailed, leaving the viewer to feel enough to complete the images based on his or her own sense of belonging.

The longing to see loved ones and remember the people I have lost causes me to dwell in places real and imaginary – Scotland,  Philadelphia, New Mexico, or Brigadoon.  My paintings are carpe diem.  They emphasize the brevity of life, an experience that is drawn and redrawn.  One should be somewhere, whether in memory or desire, and live each moment to the fullest. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings are about the visual and psychological energy of the city expressed through the angularity of its architecture and infrastructure, painted with live, rapid, interesting brushstrokes.

This high energy is sometimes offset around the edges of the urban landscape by a very different treatment of trees, bushes, and grassy areas as an impression of dabs, dashes, lines, and scumbled paint.

 Although these paintings straddle and integrate impressionist and expressionist ethos, they represent two different stylistic trends. One is more expressionist, bold, and brushy. The other is more linear, graphic, and refined.

These paintings beckon the viewer through dramatic perspective and suggest a curiosity and a journey. Landscape or Cityscape, the metaphor of “Take Any Road,” is usually close at hand in the work.

Finally, there is a tease in these works to see the next level of detail, but the attempt is to have the viewer create that detail while viewing the paintings.