ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I am a mixed-media mosaic artist and a painter. The end justifies the means in my work. When it is suitable to paint, I paint. When it is better to assemble, I assemble.
Like a gourmet cook, I exalt in fresh and unusual ingredients. I often grind my own pigments for my paintings. The rich colors of hand ground paints often surpasses what is commercially available and the variations in hues - especially in the earth tones - are more subtle and refined.
For my mosaics I fuse my own glass and use a traditional pointed hammer and hardie to cut the stones for them. In fashioning my own artifacts to embed in my mosaics and assemblage, I have control over the pictorial narrative of the individual works. And I enjoy the back-to-basics cottage industry of making things by hand.
The subject matter of my work is a conglomeration of my experience and training around the world. I obtained my Master of Fine Arts Degree in Figurative Drawing and Painting from Parsons School of Design in New York, where I studied with Larry Rivers, Paul Resika, Leland Bell, and John Heliker. It was a privilege to study with these artists for the solid grounding in painting they could provide. At Parsons, I also developed a keen interest in materials by working as assistant to noted museum conservator, Piero Manoni. A study of glaze chemistry and ceramic sculpture at the State Academy of Applied Art in Holland helped me establish some of my early groundwork for my future assemblage art.
Previously, I had lived in China for five years and became one of the first Americans to matriculate in the Beijing Central Art Academy where I trained in the art of calligraphy and brush painting. The years of travel and residencies in Europe, Asia and New York provided me with a rich source of knowledge and experience from which to create. I am familiar with the collections of over two-hundred art museums and locations important in art history. The evolution of my work is based upon direct observation and historical understanding.
The human figure is predominant in both my paintings and assemblage art. As objects of iconic reverence, performers, tellers of tales, and the embodiment of time and place, they reflect the eternal concerns of the human condition. Even when there is no figure physically present, such as in my series of paintings of the abandoned homes of South Carolina, there is a human pathos expressed in the depictions of objects touched and cherished before their inevitable release.
My most recent body of work, the “Archaeology series,” depicts small sculpted figures encapsulated in stone boundaries. They are reminiscent of the human remains of Pompei and Herculaneum, sites which I had visited a few years ago. The figures are often depicted lying dormant alongside vestiges of material objects. There is also a juxtaposition of the lowly and mundane with the precious and coveted - such as a rusted nail and a nugget of gold. Throughout all, the underlying theme is the transitoriness of life and the uncertainties of human existence. Although somber in tone, there is a sense of optimism as well with the one remaining certainty that beauty endures.