Memory Landscapes
Landscapes have the ability to spark memory and emotion and play a role in how we place and identify ourselves. These are minimal landscapes - the archetypal composition of land, sky, and the horizon. It’s as if they are barely remembered, possibly real, maybe imagined. Through the reduction of the landscape I hope to open up greater possibilities of meaning for the viewer. I use this simplified imagery as a starting point for the exploration of color relationships. Since they are not meant to replicate nature, an opportunity to use color in a different way is created. One that allows for experimentation with the arrangement of colors which can be practically infinite.

Salt Paintings
Salt gives texture and a crystalline quality to the oil paintings. They evoke a sense of place but a vague one - an atmosphere or surrounding. Both far away and near. The salt crystals cluster becoming the bits of things seen scattered on the ground or left behind by dried puddles or waves returning to the ocean. Accidental arrangements discovered. A suggestion of something remarkable within the commonplace.
 
Fragments
Pieces of ornate decorative designs are partly visible through layers of paint. Animal figures emerge from beneath the layers. The underlying images are from textile patterns from the 14th to 17th centuries of Asian and European origin in which animals, both real and mythical, were commonly used motifs. While the symbolism was more specific historically, my use of these creatures is meant to hint at a story unfolding but one that is open-ended, somewhat ambiguous. Images are obscured, veiled, mostly hidden to suggest a passage of time, fading memory, erosion. There are traces of patterns discernible, uncovered, brought to the surface. Numbers allude to a method of ordering, cataloging these fragments.

Pigeons
These are portraits of animals that are usually considered ordinary and either overlooked or reviled. I see them as beautiful birds and one of the precious few representatives of the natural world in an urban environment. I try to elevate their status and individualize them with ornamentation. Inspired by the natural and fabricated patterns that surround us, I layer photographs of pigeons with decorative designs or symbols used as repeating patterns. I am interested in the visual and conceptual contrast of the common pigeon with the highly stylized look of decorative pattern design which is usually inspired by nature yet so far removed from it in it’s application. 

Bees
Stylized floral patterns and grids are used In the Bees series to indicate a substitution of the artificial for the natural or perhaps a deception. The bees have been taken out of their usual environment. An element of discomfort has been introduced as bees can evoke feelings of anxiety, annoyance, fear or perceived danger. But more importantly for me they suggest activity, industriousness, and creativity. I have placed them in constructed settings that contrast with their disturbing nature as well as reflect their essential beauty.