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In 1991, I moved from New York City,
population 8 million, to Aripeka, a small fishing village of 500 people
on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. My home and studio are surrounded by
more than 14,000 acres of coastal wilderness. I hear no traffic.
Instead, I listen to the fish jump at night, while seeing stars
reflected in the water. All of this beauty has inspired and influenced
me as an artist. Every day I’m engaged by the raw, primitive energy of
the wetlands, as well as the vast cosmic night sky.
My approach to painting is unabashedly romantic. I belong to the
tradition of painting that employs illusionistic space to transport the
viewer into a sensory, emotional experience. We want to be swept away;
we want to experience inner tranquility. While the natural world evokes
a sense of awe, paintings are also physical objects which engage our
subconscious and carry us away. Whether I’m depicting a watery marsh or
a ribbon of galactic particles, my intention is the same: to induce a
pleasant hypnotic state – or at least a momentary pause. I also honor
the tradition in contemporary art to focus on the flat, painted surface:
What appears as a realistic type of scene when viewed from across the
room, fractures into abstraction as you approach the painting.
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