About the Work
My paintings and my photographs are both process driven. But because they are totally different mediums, the processes are quite different. They do relate, however, with similar visual language and concerns, including: structure, distilled simplicity, intimacy, memory, eros, and ambiguity of narrative.
the Paintings
I love painting and drawing because it is such a peculiar act—that of visually manipulating tangible things, making them into odd, flat, and strangely ordered images on paper or board. It is endlessly intriguing and revealing.
I try to work intuitively, for I feel this is where we tap into that thing which makes our voice unique. The real power lies in the act itself.
Putting aside any preconceptions of the direction the work should go, I respond to previous marks, decisions, actions, and let the work evolve spontaneously. Some passages resolve themselves instantly while others are worked and reworked. Often there are scores of images buried in layers of wax/paint that have been left behind by this evolutionary process. I find these traces of visual ambiguity that hint of the painting's development to be quite exciting.
the Photographs
For me photography is a very personal and intimate event; both in the act of capturing the image and the act of viewing it.
Rather than making images of a grand nature, I often prefer to focus on the small details, the ones that often go unnoticed, with the aim of transforming the ordinary into something extraordinary. These details are usually nature driven and devoid of people…but not necessarily devoid of human existence.
While working primarily monochromatically, the structure and light of an image generally prevails over any subject matter, hopefully capturing the feelings that lie beneath the surface…the ambiguous, the mysterious. It's my way of simplifying a complicated world.