Work

My work explores painting as a place of interaction and reflection where human presence completes the work.

Installation Paintings
The Installation paintings approach a scale normally reserved for sculpture and architecture. As in architecture the materials and means of the paintings serve to define the surrounding space rather than fictive space. Each painting presents a single color on a vast scale. Installed facing the wall, the painting is approached from the back, creating a private viewing space. This installation encourages a close, physical experience of color – there is no backing-off. The color extends laterally to such a degree that the viewer is completely immersed. These works, though mural-sized, retain the intimacy of easel painting.   view works

Small Paintings
There is an intimacy in the smaller work too. Densely layered over a period of years, a balance of color and mark emerges denying illusory space. The paintings project a presence not unlike a portrait – an abstract gaze. In each I seek a separate, poetic whole that faces the viewer with presence and clarity, alive in the insistent, evident humanity of its construction.   view works

Large Paintings
The physical construction of the smaller paintings and the immersive color space of the installation paintings both emerged from an on-going series of large paintings begun in 1998.   view works

Skull & Self Drawings
Skulls and self-portraits share not only a rich history as vanitas subject matter but are also complex forms that sustain perceptual and material engagement. In this series of drawings, which includes self-portraits and skulls, gestures derived from a representational under-drawing are amplified and repeated, transforming an allusive symbol into a tangible passage of time.   view skull drawings | view self drawings

Text Works
These works in paper manipulate the scale of language in texts by Melville, Proust, and the poets St. Jean Perse and Paul Celan. In each work the component letters of a given word achieve visual and spatial independence - letters, punctuation, and blank spaces are equally weighted - each taking its place on a single page. The scale of the letterforms in relation to the surrounding space of the page reforms the familiar immediacy and ease of language into a physical construction. The eye can no longer easily corral letters into words and words into sentences. Thus, the intended linearity of the written thought is compromised. In each work the act of reading is transformed into an experience of physical movement and memory. The original text remains present but resists normal modes of comprehension.   view works