Artist Statement ____________________________________________________________
“Painting is not dead whatsoever, contrary to the statements muttered ad- infinitum during my college years. I do see a visual lull or rut presently with a group need to push past pure abstraction, minimalism, process painting, Pop, etc. We’re able to move beyond “rendering” what we “see”, and I’m always surprised by how narrow the focus remains when we are free to paint anything, absolutely anything at all.
I felt a blankness settling over me when working in abstraction and find that my world of possibility opens up when I pour through my books of collected bits of ephemera from magazines and newspapers. The process of shuffling them in with bits of the world I’m currently drawn to such as rocks, many, many rocks, jewels, belt buckles, clouds and volcanoes, eggs and fire, sun and earth and precipices, walls and doors, provides me with much more opportunity to see something I’ve never seen before. I’m able to create a new and often very odd place.