Artist Statment
My paintings are based on a personal sense of place that has origins in a youthful passion for collecting butterflies, moths and other insects. One of my favorite hunting grounds was Sunset Park; an eighty-five acre, hardwood forested park perched on a bluff that ran down to, and along the Missouri River. Frequent family excursions up the Great River Road, and the industrial landscapes of the St. Louis area made a lasting impression too. I am attracted to nocturnal alleyways, and the river with its harbors, industrial moorings, barge traffic and bridges. These are ordinary places that some may feel unworthy of depiction. The mundane and unremarkable instill the commonplace with a feeling of anonymity. Anonymity speaks to the unknown, it is the mystery that transforms the prosaic into poetry, and painting for me is a form of introspection couched in the contemplation of familiar landscapes mediated by light and atmosphere. A sense of place is a screen for the projection of thoughts and emotions on to it, coloring our experience. Place is a medium of exchange, a dialogue between an experience of the external environment and the interior, emotional and psychological landscape. According to the philosopher Gaston Bachelard, place is an intimate experience rendered immense by its intensity.
