Statement, Bio, and CV
Statement:
I have two primary bodies of work: Fusion and Place. The unifying theme is imagined reality, where meaning lies beneath appearances, outside logic and conventional wisdom. Beyond the surface, the seen and unseen, the real and imagined coexist to shape human experience. Myth, history, and culture fuse to inform one another. Places have meaning. They shape who we are and how we interpret the world.
Fusion of History, Myth, and Culture – From an early age I learned to look beyond the surface. Things are not always as they seem, their true nature often lives outside of the boundaries of logic and rationality.
My paintings fuse history, myth, and culture. They dissolve distinctions between the real and the imagined, and often collapse temporal boundaries, allowing mythic archetypes and contemporary forms to coexist within the same visual and emotional space. The work invites reflection on how the stories we inherit inform the present and how every culture reinvents meaning across time.
Capturing an idea is more important than a veridical rendering or adhering to conventional wisdom, or artistic convention. I let the painting unfold as I work.
Meditations on Place – How do the places we inhabit shape who we are, and how we see the world? The works reflect on the relationship between place and identity. They explore how natural and built landscapes carry emotional, cultural, and historical weight. Places, Real or imagined, are more than backdrop: they are living carriers of memory and meaning.
Bio
I was born in Wisconsin, spent my formative years in Tucson, Arizona, traveled and lived abroad for 14 years, and currently live in Colorado. Along with a lifetime of painting, I studied small mammals in the southwestern US and Mexico, wrote AI software, worked on cruise ships, and was a psychology professor. I have exhibited paintings and sculptures in Colorado, New York, California, Oregon, and in Germany.
Formative Years: My early life experiences in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona influenced my outlook on life and art. They taught me to see the world differently: My desert journey spanned several years and countless miles of brush, cacti, and rock. I hiked to the tops of hills and crawled down into abandoned mines. Was surrounded by coyotes, javelina, and hundreds of bats. Ate cactus and agave fruits and talked with plants and animals.
In front of Moulin Galette, Montmarte, Paris