Artist Statement

After over twenty years’ painting a broad variety of subjects in a broad variety of styles, I made an important decision: to enroll in the Compass Atelier.  This program honed my technical skills and made me aware of my natural direction: my affinity for the style of the Dutch Masters with attention to detail, to allusion, to everyday life.

My arrangements comment upon the fecundity of life through compositions of everyday fruits and vegetables. All forms of life are driven to reproduce; more complex forms through more complex relationships. I seek to suggest these relationships—the state of being connected in some manner—as they relate to humanity in my compositions. The most essential relationships, be they sexual, personal, familial, racial are alluded to in myriad forms—coyly, directly, ironically.   It is fascinating to me to discover how the simple foods we eat can convey complex human interactions—in the traditional style of the Dutch Masters.

This layering of Dutch Masters’ technique with modern sensibility allows me, as an artist, to sum up a lifetime’s experience in each carefully-placed stroke of my brush.