Statement

“...abstraction if it was to be invested with any emotional resonance or spiritual meaning, had to be relational. That is to say, it had to be connected – not, of course, in a representational way, but metaphorically - with something both seen and felt…” - Sean Scully

I paint and draw in a gestural way, referencing the landscape and places I call home. My environment prompts an emotional response which acts as the starting points for my paintings. I employ the grid as a way of expanding and interrupting gesture and space. These interruptions create portals or smaller worlds opening up a possibility. I utilize a limited color palette in order to expose layers, mark and shape. My physical body informs the scale, pressure and duration of the work, determining both the magnitude of the painting and the size of the mark. Intuition guides my process while the grid, historically used as a way to organize space and structure, provides tension and resistance, an opposition against which to make visual decisions.

I’m interested in the dichotomy between the natural world and the technological: nature, through gesture and organic pattern, the grid by means of rectangles and squares, suggesting tech culture and digital media. In this way, the grid forms a hard and soft boundary for the work. Gesture, on the other hand, comes from a place of muscle memory creating a haptic space for reflection and the association of personal history. Color has both an emotional and formal power, for example cobalt blue referencing the density and transparent weight of Lake Huron, a short walking distance from my home studio. Yellow serves as a stand-in for light and mass, earth and air; its mutable qualities hinting at the complexity of vision and the perception of space. All of these elements bring together a way of working that is experiential while remaining committed to the pictorial challenge of painting.