My new paintings of crowds and individuals are based on relationship both intimate and distant.  Paintings of claustrophobic city settings and cutout solitary figures are caught in moments of contemplation, anxiety or in mid-conversation with unseen counterparts.  These works play with vulnerability of the individual in city or intimate home-life situations.

More and more I notice the patterns around me visually organizing my world and making everything concrete. The weave in the fan, the stitching on the organ, the bowl of apples, the steady chug of the dishwasher and techno music thumping away in the background all contribute to my art-making practice.

Bamboo sticks and good luck signs,

the sun and the moon every day,

the books on the shelves,

flowers from the market on Saturday,

city grids and stop lights,

past-present-future, past-present-future,

A-L, M-Z,

Revolution/Revelation,

life cycles, death cycles, wash cycles

these are the patterns I muse over and record.

Sometimes I see the big picture

and sometimes everything revolves around the smallest details like feeding the fish,

dotting orange paint and remembering to take my pill.

I paint mainly in oils on wood, canvas and paper. I assemble pieces with stitching (which piercingly binds my meandering thoughts together), silver leaf (because it tarnishes), gold leaf (because it doesn’t), dictionaries, bronze and fabric. I cherish the beautiful, the delicate, the detailed, the organic and the non-violent but I often paint my experience with violence, despair, the poor and the war-torn.

I find solace in quiet thoughts, self-reflection and ordered words.

My images surface from the subconscious, childhood experiences, memories, tragedies, writings and dreams.

My paintings are like escaped ideas caught.

Ideas litter my mind

like scraps of paper or buzzing flies. The paintings

come together like a jigsaw puzzle or a world map;