about

At Montserrat School of Visual Art, now Montserrat College of Art, I explored a wide range of styles and techniques. I studied design with Roger Martin and met the painter Paul Scott. It was during this time that I started experimenting with shaped canvases and developed reductionist composition concepts. Woven through this was a concentration on the use of color for both expressive and compositional control.

After a move to Bloomington, Indiana in 1975, I worked in graphic design, and in the evenings continued my exploration of shaped canvases. Early on, these were flat irregular polygons, but I’ve always enjoyed sculpture and desired something more substantial from my painted canvases. When, in 1981, I came across extruded foam, I started down a new path with sculpted supports that could satisfy both artistic interests. I have since worked with a number of man-made materials: expanded PVC, high density urethane (HDU), cross-linked polyethylene (XLP) and I've always enjoyed working with wood. I have continued to develop sculpted supports and constructions with and without canvas.

My panel work involves building wooden support panels and applying entire sheets of paint to the prepared panels. To prepare the sheets of paint, I paint in reverse on large sheets of glass, developing the image from the foreground to the background. The result is a thick vinyl-like sheet of paint. I love the enigmatic nature of this surface, where you can see the immediacy of the strokes, but are presented with a glossy smooth surface.

Rarely have I returned to the rectangular canvas, maintaining my focus instead on composition in relation to sculpted form or constructions. I expect that I will always explore creative use of materials in my search for new insights and methods of visual presentation.

Often I use landscape themes to examine our relationship with our world as well as a metaphor for the changing paradigms and intricacies of the mind.