forced interaction
There is a sometimes forced but ever-present interaction between nature and the city. Trees grow in the city through holes cut in concrete and contained by steel grates, and in corporate lobbies, jammed into ill-fitting planters.
two ways of seeing
On the surface, my paintings present uninhabited landscapes which are empty, devoid of artifice, allowing for my contemplation of the meaning of being isolated and alone. That contemplative quality originates from my experience of the landscapes, filtered through my life as an urbanite; my paintings reflect the gridwork of the city, in which space, distance and experience are quantified. These paintings are an attempt to reconcile these two ways of seeing the landscape: one as an observer of the environment, and the other as the product.
unexpected aspects of landscape
My paintings are carefully constructed to allow visual structure to bring out unexpected aspects of the landscape. Gridworks expand, contract, and isolate areas, then break through others, to create a sense of atmospheric forces at work. I build the paintings in layers. While the surfaces of each work shows the sublime landscape, the underpainting sets the less stable atmosphere of the scene. Thin washes of sometimes vivid color are laid on the panels first, then allowed to show through between the overpainted sections of the grid, giving the emotional underpinning of the work. The color washes tend to suggest changing aspects of the day – light, weather, mood – which might have occurred immediately before or after the scene depicted, and give a subtle emotional charge to the experience.
giving atmosphere a physical quality
The overpainting, with heavy brushwork, is much more textured, giving atmosphere a physical, almost tangible quality and mass. Graphite forms, such as branches and rocks (at times reflective, at other times an inky black), punctuate the space.
The combined effect is to make the paintings at once meditative and dynamic, suggesting the experience of urban life as a play between stasis and flux.