Those following a path of regular art practice will likely encounter Creativity’s ally, Uncertainty. While exploring the creative terrain, at times much of it feels like groundless space, but with a degree of curiosity, we come to realize it’s right where we need to be as artists. The feeling of uncertainty is not our private domain however. It affects everyone from time to time, and I’m curious to explore how that groundless, fragile feeling plays upon the complexity of our inner layers and becomes visible at the surface. My art is primarily figurative, focusing on our moments of fleeting self-doubts, memories, dreams... as well as our moments of insight.
I focused on both art and music at Cal State University at Northridge, where I studied under Hans Burkhardt, Saul Bernstein, Ernest Fried and Robert Brown, earning a BA Degree in Art - with concentration in drawing, printmaking and photography. My early art training focused on figure drawing, copying the Old Masters and studying art history both Western and Eastern. I still have a tremendous love and craving for art history - all periods and cultures.
While I work in a variety of different media, as well as non-representationally, it is the human figure and the feeling of abrasive media against paper that resonates the deepest within me, whether based on live models, memory or imagination. Figure drawing remained a constant practice during my busy years while raising two daughters and working as an online banking systems programmer, and continued while building a freelance design/web career. Since gradual retirement from 2012-15, I’ve dedicated myself to fine art on a full time basis.
Recently I’ve become curious to build narrative scenarios as a means of investigating our moments of both disorientation and open clarity, as well as the subjectivity of our perception - the real, the remembered, the imagined, the dreamed, both the wondrous and frightening. I build the narrative quite intuitively, adding elements and layers containing intentional ambiguities to heighten intrigue and curiosity, prompting us to ask “What is happening? What are we really perceiving and feeling?” It is my hope that my artwork will prompt curiosity and introspection. I post work in progress in my blog and social media.
Thank you so much for visiting!