Work
My mixed media paintings extend landscape painting traditions, and propose new relationships to the locations we inhabit. Instead of illustrating distant views of generic scenery, this work places the viewer in the center of vivid sensations of the natural world. Whether a precisely rendered fragment, or a dramatically enlarged specimen, I provide intimate, urgently specific encounters between human and botanical realms.
Grasslands
These signature works look at deep expanses of geography, species, and time. The concept was begun in 1997 while I was working in Montana, and continues to this day. This intricate collection of native and invasive plants breaks with enduring artistic traditions. The cropped, sharply focused images embody the seductive physicality of oil paint, but reject conventions of horizon line, panoramas, grandiose scale, or a lofty "god's eye" view.
Burlap Paintings
This work draws upon my gardening practice, surviving the 2017 Thomas Fire, and contemplating issues of environmental sustainability. Drawing on equal parts imagination, childhood fables, and agricultural realities, these dense, rough surfaces suggest Nature’s dominance and ultimate endurance.
Energy Studies
These paintings are dirty, they are seductive--a toxic, addictive combination that directly targets all of us dependent on the grid while we simultaneously indulge in fantasies of pristine nature.
Horizonlines
Since 1997 my work has focused almost entirely on tightly cropped images, as opposed to full-frame views typical of traditional landscape painting. In 2013 I moved to a studio at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, which is imposing new influences on how I perceive space. In these paintings, the horizon line dominates all, democratically mingling common elements of both natural and human-made scenes.
Waterways
The bodies of water that make life possible are essential, beautiful, and compromised. The urgency of this subject is directly rendered in a combination of traditional art materials and petroleum products.
Agriculture
The food industry today provides many images of working landscapes. Dependence on the costly twin resources of water and oil make even the most pastoral scenes extensively financed and constructed.
Botanicals
Native specimens, invasive plants, and agricultural crops grow together until natural forces or human intervention tip the advantage. Water, chemicals, fire and other disturbances shape Mother Nature's continuous botanical drama.