I paint the moment just before you understand what you're looking at.

That moment is the whole thing for me. The catch, the quiet click when a place surfaces out of the paint. I work in oil and cold wax on panel, and I paint places I've stood. From across the room you see a cliff, a wave, a stand of redwoods. Walk closer and it opens up into knife marks and carved lines. Somewhere in between, you have to slow down and find it yourself.

The feelings I'm chasing are mystery, wistfulness, and awe. The particular awe of standing somewhere so beautiful it almost frightens you. The wistfulness of a place that already feels like a memory while you're still standing in it. The mystery of light that makes an everyday place feel briefly sacred.

The paint carries half of that. I build it up thick with a knife, and I carve back into it, and the conversation between those two moves is where the feeling lives.

I want the people who live with my work to feel those things too... not all at once, but slowly, over time, on a Tuesday afternoon when the light in the room is just right.

 

More information

• Artist Bio
• My Process and Style
• CV