ARTIST STATEMENT

Walking through the woods, my camera has me stop so I can see what I’m looking at. To see what the photo will look like one must look through the viewfinder to compose, focus, zoom. Snapping the picture takes a moment.

I’m not a landscape painter.  My paintings relate to a place. And are interpretations from nature. Not to copy. The photo is a reminder of where to start a painting. The space of the picture plane is about what made me stop in the first place. Was it the way the sunlight glanced off the phragmites, the light meandering in and out around saplings, reeds and trees, the inner world of a flower or the surprise of a bird hidden on a branch.  

So what I paint is the experience of what was in front of me, within reach or under my feet. I begin the space primed in black as if opening a door to let in the light.  Space and light.

I paint to remember. And for the viewer, to perhaps evoke their own memories of places.

April 2020 Hatch Art Gallery, Hamtramck, MI