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Landscape is central to my work. The paintings juxtapose human history as seen in local architecture with the wildness of the natural elements. I am inspired by these aspects of my surroundings and react to them visually by finding an underlying pictorial structure through rhythm, movement and infinite variations of patterns of light. Painting on location, these places are sometimes remote—the Spanish Pyrenees, the hills of Tuscany, sometimes close by—New York City.
In the work, a sense of place is captured by a clear definition of space and light. The paintings are a direct response to the process of observing nature, and often the same site is painted again with subtle shifts in the painting. Brushwork is impetuous and irregular to quickly record my first perceptions of the natural world. The tonalities and layered brushwork evoke fauna and flora embedded in almost a cubist structure. As the painting develops, my work aims to embody two paradoxical forces: the spirit of the fleeting moment and a definitive order of structure.
Fleeting light and rhythmic spatial intervals are elements that energize and inform my still life painting. Working from still life can be purely optical and formalist, and at times, it can be a subjectively charged experience, capturing the inherent visual expressiveness of simple objects that are imprinted into our daily lives. |
