Artist’s Statement

The proportions of the bones in our hands, the distances between the planets in our solar system, and Katsushika Hokusai’s block print “Great Wave at Kanagawa“ all share a kind of common set of rules. That rule is Phi. I try to follow this golden proportion with my paintings and sculpture. 

I explore the forms and patterns inherent in landscape to work within this principle. Landscape serves as a scaffold or platform over which I play with abstract concerns. Just as Bill Bailey’s still lifes aren’t really about bottles and bowls my work uses landscape as a tool. When I talk about this, I’m often met with skepticism. One artist friend of mine told me , “That’s bullshit. You just love landscape.” This might be true.

I paint on wooden boards laid on the floor. I thin the paints so they’ll dribble and flow and although I usually start with a specific landscape, I do follow the paint’s natural course. Color, pattern, rhythm, and accident all step into the process. My problem is no matter how long I work on them or return to them, I never feel that the paintings are finished, probably just abandoned.

My sculptures adhere to the same process. I follow the suggestion of animal’s anatomy and ask the curves in the form to follow Fibonacci sequencing. Allowing the materials and accident to have a role in the process of making either a painting or a sculpture, I believe, probably makes a connection with my subconscious. There’s no way to prove this, but it seems an interesting possibility.