Much of my work explores the line, color, and texture that occur in the natural world. The forms we see and their proportions speak to us in a mathematical language which appeals on a primitive, instinctual level as much as on a more sophisticated cognitive one. A realistic depiction allows the artist to let the subject matter speak for itself. It also reminds the viewer to notice natural beauty everywhere one looks. All the works on this site explore the order imposed by life on the material world and its inevitable disintegration over time.

Terra Nova
The delicate patterns of cracks in the sidewalk were the inspiration for the series Terra Nova. The paintings are life-sized pictures of portions of sidewalk. In the cracks in the concrete and the holes in the dead leaves we see moments in the process of decay. Decay is the essential process in transforming dead matter into new life. This gap is perhaps the greatest and least understood of all. The natural process of entropy is seen in once living matter and in inorganic concrete, emphasizing their entanglement. The synthetic order shaped by human hands is also digested by time into raw material.

I recreated the concrete texture of the sidewalk by mixing sand into the gesso, and by using small dots of different colored paint to depict the particles making up the concrete. The leaves are painted in a more traditional manner with multiple layers of glossy oil paint to provide a contrast to the rough background.