Painting/Drawing

Photography

Contact Information

Design Studio Art Gallery
Hyattsville, MD
e-mail:
http://homeiswhere.wordpress.com
Please contact artist for purchases, commissions, etc.

Artist Statement

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
William Blake

My approach to landscape painting draws from the most artificial sources I can find: the photograph, staged lighting, and archetypal symbols and mythical or fantastic imagery. Such things are at odds with nature yet perhaps most revealing of our relationship to it. We want and expect sensation in what we see and experience, and we have our own ideas about what that sensation looks like. We have a vision for what we think would be ideal and beautiful but we miss the beauty and magic that nature already provides. Therefore, I feel that the use of artificial scenes is the best approach to painting a true landscape. I use paper and glue to create simple forms then I paint a ?backdrop? scene for the forms. I light and photograph the scene. Sometimes I like how the photograph comes out and sometimes I use it as a subject for a new painting. In this way I am constantly artificializing the landscape through each step of a project, layering process upon process until a completely artificial and unnatural scene emerges.

I do this because I think that imagination is the most important thing. It is always influencing our relationship with our environment. Using staged scenes or photographs rather than painting from life helps me to recreate natural scenes in the most truthful way: through our own eyes and influenced by our own perceptions and experiences. It is not to say that I do not find nature in all its naked glory captivating and beautiful. I do! And that is why I started painting landscapes. But I have realized that we never really see nature (or anything) in an objective way. The scenes, objects and moments we behold are only ever our subjective perceptions of them. I am inspired by the behavior of color and light in nature, so these two aspects are usually the main subjects in my work. Since I am usually painting from a photograph or a stage set miniature, the light and color in the paintings usually turns out very dramatic and unnatural. This effect only serves my intentions greater!

I hope that the drama in the paintings will help transport a viewer, and that the exaggerated colors will awaken imagination, so that viewing the paintings becomes a new and personal experience for everyone. It is quite wonderful how we can look upon nature in a completely conscious and sober state, and not see things as they really are. Imagination is present in every observation. Presenting something so subjective as a feeling can be the only way to connect the viewer. The truth, that is, the real human experience, is not really in what we see but what we imagine and the personal feelings we attach to our physical experience.

Recreating landscapes as imagine-scapes is a way to think about what we see, and what we want to see…a way of making a new world. I work from photographs to get information about the light and color because this method changes the tone of the resulting landscape, both in a visual way with the unnatural color tones and in an emotional way as our response changes with the light. It is as if there is something looming in the scene, that I have captured a very beautiful, peaceful moment just before some dreadful event takes place. This uneasiness and uncertainty is very important. The viewer must not only find communion in a sentimental portrait of nature, they must find themselves transposed. If one is never wary, one is never surprised or excited. The work goes from nature (inspiration) to contrived visualization (process) to spontaneous thrill (effect on the viewer). You could even say we move from natural to artificial to instinctual, or perhaps…natural.

Education

2003- 2008
University of Delaware, Newark, DE
BFA, Fine Arts, Painting

Professional Experience

2009 – present
Westwood One / Metronetworks, Silver Springs, MD

Intern and Exhibiting Artist, Design Studio Art Gallery, Hyattsville, MD

Membership Coordinator, The Textile Museum, Washington, DC

Selected Exhibitions

2010
Open House Art Show, Fourth Floor Gallery, Washington DC

2009
Emerging Artists, Design Studio Art Gallery, Hyattsville, MD

2008
20″ x 20″ x 20″ Compact Competition, Louisiana State University Student Center, Baton Rouge, LA

2007
BFA Exhibition, University of Delaware Studio Arts Building, Newark, DE