my perspective

The spirit of art is alive in everything: In the balance between aesthetics and functionality, it may be found in the spiral geometry of a shell or the fractal patterns on a leaf.  In the unpredictability and chaos of life's processes, it may take form in mutations of a species or as cosmic collisions and explosions spattering across the night sky.  Humans are not exempt from nature's artistic influences. The blood in our veins and thoughts running their neural pathways travel along fractal paths. Our bodies are laid out according to symmetry.  As life happens, the unexpected introduces itself to change bits and pieces of the whole and we adapt imperfectly to survive. These, nature's wondrous compositions both studied or little known, are the diverse aspects working together to form and govern parts whereby some whole orchestrates itself.  Decomposition and construction are nature's paintbrushes--the continual movement toward balance their painting always in progress.

My art is a reflection of these natural principles and processes. A painting begins as a concept or simply as a desire to create something. Then, whether the foundational drawing or wash is somewhat random and chaotic or planned and symmetry based, the process I follow is similar.   I find images between the spaces of lines or within gradations of color, then bring them forward and break them down again according to new lines and colors. This mimics the vascular patterns with which nature fills an organism. First, a body is divided and connected in large sections which are broken down continually into smaller like sections until even the smallest space is fed by a vessel.  And within that framework exist other structures of a similar nature each with unique but unifying functions. And thus my art process continues inward and outward filling a space until what exists is a map of my subconscious-- threads woven together in micro and macro schemes of an untold story. Because the process is an exploration of subconscious (suppression, experience, hope, potential, etc), there is often a struggle to find balance. One image uncovered may later seem to compete with a newer image, and integration of the two or more parts must somehow happen.  In the end, what is both beautiful and disturbing, spacious and dense, blatant and curios may find their places together--a mirror to life's complexity.