About the Art

 My creative process has evolved over the many decades that I have been studying, and teaching, the Elements and Principles of Art. I've participated in workshops with talented local artists, experimented on my own with materials and techniques, and made lots and lots of mistakes! The end result is an original approach which I call - with not much originality - Mixed Media Abstract Landscapes.

The paintings I create are generally inspired by landscape photographs which I have shot, so my art really is rooted in reality. I employ traditional techniques - for example, underpainting and colour blocking - as a starting point, then move into abstract techniques to complete each interpretation.

Mixed Media means that I use a wide range of materials to create my paintings, rather than sticking to just one. Some of my go-tos include acrylic and latex paints, spray paint, collage, marble dust, silt, sand, salt, oil paint, and even liquid asphalt.

I'm especially proud of this last, unusual, artistic medium, as I discovered it, quite by chance, several years ago. I started using liquid asphalt after coming across a display in a hardware store. At that time I was already doing mixed media, and I wondered, "could this work?" I took a bottle home and decided to experiment, quite prepared for a fail. Instead, that first painting with liquid asphalt worked out well enough to have me using it again and again. I've since developed different techniques and pairings, depending on the effect I'm trying to achieve. While I absolutely cannot be the only artist in the world using liquid asphalt in my art, when I picked up my first bottle, I had never heard of it being used for painting. To this date I have still never seen anyone use it as a painting and texturizing medium the way I do.

My paintings are textured enough that I now mostly paint on cradled wood panel (usually birch), as it offers better support. I sometimes let areas of the wood show through, which can have a nice effect, and also serve as a reminder of the natural world outside our doors.

Art is communication. Every work of art communicates some kind of message, lesson, or feeling.

My goal is to communicate the feeling of a time and place, not to create a painted copy of a photograph. In that sense, my paintings can be seen as emotional landscapes.

We all have memories and emotions tied to different landscapes: a summer sunset at the lake… fields of grain ripening in the sun… a day at the beach… standing on a ski hill and looking at the valley and mountains beyond… If you can engage with my art because it reminds you of a personal landscape, or because it triggers a memory which is meaningful to you, I count that as success.

In short, I try to make sure that every painting tells a story. The story is about a time and place. The story is about a feeling. The story is about me, but it is also about you, and about all of us.