in season:landscapes

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artist’s statement

Calm winter light… Lush extravagance of autumn leaves… The unique elements of each season in New England continually urge me to transmit and share my pleasure in making a painterly statement that is nature based but primarily coloristic. Color relationships have always fascinated me and formed the basis of my work, starting with the geometric abstractions I did following my formal schooling at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. But I found I needed a concrete point of reference. Landscape has provided that ever since, even after a fifteen year hiatus when I did not paint at all. It allows a variety of expressive possibilities to explore color and surface with the tactile sensuous quality of the paint itself. However, my interest is not to create a window on the world or to reproduce the view, but to make an object that is compelling in its own right. That is one reason I do not frame my work. My aim is to celebrate visual experience, rather than to convey information or illustrate an idea. painting becomes a journey of visual discovery in which improvising on chance plays an important part. the universal features of landscape - trees, sky, ground, - are simplified more and more as the image develops in its own way. Colors may be lush, mysterious darks, bright glowing hues, or subtle combinations; paint may be thick, scraped, layered or glazed. The resulting images are an evocation, an emotional resonance of what I have seen.