My paintings, prints, and etchings come from the visual and sensory experiences I gather from life around me. Because I have always lived in New York, many of my ideas come from the city and from different aspects of my experience here. I do not go searching for images, but rather feel that the imagery discovers me. I allow sights and sites to come to me and heighten my awareness as I travel through the city. New York offers its geometry, order, and chaos to me, and I utilize detail, scale, and color to depict not only the visual stimulus but also the larger sensory experience of a scene. I sketch landscapes, buildings, or people I see routinely, usually after a seemingly spontaneous moment arises, in which it becomes clear to me that the scene I am looking at holds categorical potency to transmit or say something about the city in a painting. I then develop paintings from sketches I make about these scenes.
By repeatedly changing my subjects and compositional approach, each new sketch or painting re-enlivens my larger thematic material. While much of my material focuses on New York and shows various aspects of the city, I also investigate figurative and still life works generated by my personal experiences and interiors.
Integral to my creative process is my fascination with the contradictions of creating space on a two-dimensional surface. There is an inherent paradox in this attempt. I am invested in using my creative process to both illuminate and resist the possible expansions and limits of visual forms. In addition to painting, I work in multiple print forms, including etchings and lithography.
Woodcuts originally drew me into printmaking. My work on traditional Bavarian limestone enabled me to use a variety of media and alter images even after I had begun the printing process. For many years, I printed in my studio on an antique Fuchs and Lang press. My interest in woodcuts led me to etching and lithography, which I pursued for many years. Recently, I have been re-discovering what attracted me to woodcuts—the immediacy and directness of the medium. Even as my practice continues to shift, I look back at my origins and see things I missed: I apply new perspectives to engage the material. My commitment to fluidity of medium and approach enables me to develop an ongoing conversation among me, my materials, and images.