The Quiet

Artspace Gallery | Summer 2022

“Painting, for me, is a place of agitation and excitement mixed with utter calm and joy. Whether I am standing alone in a grassy field or in a dark room late at night, lit only by the ambient light from the street or the half-light of an unseen lamp, these seemingly opposite sensations are at work. The Quiet reflects my interest in capturing ordinary moments, everyday surroundings. Working by direct observation, I am concerned with composition, color, light and shadow, and, increasingly, texture—and how those elements orchestrate our daily lives. My paintings rarely include figures, but rather suggest their presence—perhaps a room where someone is about to enter or has just left. In that, The Quiet articulates a dynamic space, one that negotiates many states of being to reveal a sense of place, both physical and emotional.”

Subterranean

Artspace Gallery | Summer 2019

“For me, there is a certain wonder in the unnoticed—some natural delicacy from my morning walk, a patch of light on a wall, gritty urban pavement. And so for years, I have given way to an irresistible urge to collect images: manhole covers, doorways, abandoned billboards, dilapidated train cars, the palimpsest in old hand-painted wall signage. Or simply the remnants of a spent moment. These photos are signposts in my life, a kind of visual record of my impulse to look below the surface of my surroundings for a new way of seeing them.  ■  The images here—extracted from parking garage walls—are born of that impulse. As a painter, I am drawn by the textural consequences of time and weather on these subterranean walls and surfaces. I am intrigued by the accidental collaboration with the workers who came before me with their glue guns, chalk lines, spackle knives, and pencils.  ■  The resulting marks, at once systematic and arbitrary, reveal a kind of signature in some places, others, small drawings or diagrams, random arithmetic calculations; the residual adhesive that here evokes Japanese calligraphy, or there an Aboriginal pattern of dots; the remains of wall repairs—dabs, smears, stripes, patches of concrete or plaster.  ■  As a typophile, I love the hand-rendered number and letter forms. Always the repetition. And making the mundane visible.”