Artist Statement

After eight years of painting semi-realistic expressive watercolors, I began to experiment with collage, acrylic, and a more abstract style. This new nonobjective evocative approach now anchors my contemporary work and has become my passion.

Worldwide travel and the American Southwest where I live continue to be my primary influences and inspiration. I love the labor-intensive layering of paint and paper as I mine and refine my work to represent the concepts and the heart of the places my paintings represent.

My paintings have between 15 and 25 layers of paper, paint, and found materials.  I put on and I paint over and I take away, always building, tearing down, and altering the surface.  Sometimes I feel like an archaeologist – searching, digging, scraping, pounding, looking for the meaning of the painting.  Oftentimes, the final painting is completely different from the original concept that I envisioned.  It is this unpredictable evolutionary process that I find most challenging and most exciting.