ARTIST STATEMENT

I am a figurative painter; I'm firmly committed to realism; and it is the dawn of the 21st century. Those three facts pose this dilemma: how, as an artist striving to be relevant in today's world, does one express issues as old as the human race, with a centuries old technique and style, in a manner and context appropriate and engaging to a contemporary audience. My response to that dilemma is my strong conviction that although the world around us has changed and thus our reactions to it, we, in fact, we human beings are essentially the same biological bundles of flesh and bones and blood that we were tens of thousands of years ago. It seems to me in a post-modern world in which the ancient cycles of nature - birth, death, regeneration - have been all but interrupted, rejected, and replaced by unnatural intervention at many different stages, painting the figure is an affirmative act of the utmost reverence, relevance, and devotion.

The figure has been absolutely central to my work in imagery and narrative. In many of these paintings the viewer is placed amid the drama unfolding on the canvas. It's an almost impossible space, I realize that; it hovers somewhere between the actual world and the painted world. The paintings, simply put, are about making pictures - through paint and through discreet "framing" in mirrors, windows and various lenses (cameras, binoculars, eye glasses, and magnifying glasses). I would say the overarching concept is vision - how we (artist and viewer alike) first create and then process images as we gaze about us in this world. The result of our scrutiny is an ever expanding and contracting sphere of reference.

In these paintings the figures are compressed into an interior space, and they have been deliberately made aware and watchful of actions that are happening beyond this circumscribed zone. We live in a world in which we are bombarded by news of events - both momentous and life changing as well as quotidian and mundane - coming at us from every direction. This can be comforting as well and anxiety producing.

In other paintings I explore the universal and daily rituals of personal adornment. I've traveled to many remote and exotic parts of the world and watched people of many different and varied cultures all go through the same daily rituals of applying paint, paste, and mud to their faces; bedecking themselves with vegetation, animal bones and feathers; and submitting their bodies to piercing, tattooing, and scarification. Here in our own Western society our daily rituals are no different. By applying lipstick, grooming our hair, and adorning ourselves with jewelry we also take our place in this parade of humanity. Our outer "skin" is the envelope in which we deliver ourselves to the world, and the markings we make on it tell our stories.

Titian was reported to have said that the reason he used so many layers of glazes in his portraits was because of the infinite layers to the human identity. These paintings are constructed with many layers of glazing, and I like to recall this quote when I think of my painting process. Painting a form once is not enough. It has to be painted and repainted, again and again, each time sinking it back into space, so that upon viewing, the image floats to the surface and resonates in its fullest and richest form.

To some degree I can compare myself to a novelist (the only other art form that moves me as much as painting). I often hear or read about authors explaining that they create these characters on the page and then they sit back and watch what the characters will do. I experienced a similar sensation in making these paintings. The figures often would take on a life and will of their own telling me what needed to be done with them.