PAINTINGS
Paintings born from heightened perception, where memory, imagination and the world around us collide with the experience of simply being alive.
Heightened Perception
I paint from that strange place where observation, memory and imagination begin to overlap. A landscape can become a collection of characters. Shadows can turn trees into dancers. A city can collapse into hundreds of lives happening at once. Sometimes a painting begins with a place or an experience. Other times I simply follow whatever happens to be wandering through my universe.
I am interested in those moments when we become unusually aware of being alive while we are living it. We move through the world believing we are in control, yet we are surrounded by people, nature, movement, chance and circumstances we cannot control at all. Somehow we navigate through the chaos.
The paintings live somewhere inside that tension. Figures, faces, animals, landscapes and imagined forms appear and disappear. What one person recognizes may be completely different from what another sees. I don't feel the need to resolve everything. Part of the experience belongs to the person standing in front of the painting.
From across a room, a painting may first appear as a landscape, a face, a pattern or simply an arrangement of color and movement. As you move closer, smaller worlds begin to emerge. Figures appear. Eyes look back. Animals, faces and imagined creatures reveal themselves among shapes that moments earlier seemed entirely abstract.
I like that uncertainty. I am not interested in telling the viewer exactly what they are supposed to see. A form that becomes a dancer to one person might remain a tree to another. Something playful can suddenly feel mysterious. The painting stays the same, but perception changes.
That process of discovery is part of the work. I want the paintings to reward time, curiosity and the willingness to keep looking.
What Appears When You Look
Paint, Texture and Light
The physical surface of a painting matters to me. I build layers of color and texture that catch light differently as the viewer moves through a room. In some works, traditional oils are combined with iridescent pigments, allowing certain colors, marks and forms to become more or less visible as the surrounding light changes.
The effect can be subtle or dramatic. A painting experienced in daylight can reveal something different at night. Changing the color or direction of light can bring forward a figure that seemed almost invisible moments earlier.
That physical unpredictability is part of what I love about painting. There is no single definitive way to experience the work. Distance changes it. Light changes it. The room changes it. Even the frame of mind of the person standing in front of it can change what is seen.
Created at Scale
Working at a large scale allows the paintings to become environments rather than simply objects on a wall. From across a room, a face, figure or larger composition may emerge. As the viewer approaches, smaller scenes, characters and fragments begin revealing themselves. Closer still, the imagery gives way to layers of color, texture and paint.
Many of my largest works measure 70 × 84 inches. Their scale creates room for numerous experiences to coexist within a single surface while still allowing the composition to hold together from a distance. The viewer can take in the painting as a whole, then move closer and discover the smaller worlds living inside it.
That movement is part of the experience. The painting does not reveal itself from one fixed position. It changes with distance, attention, light and time.
Whatever Wanders Through My Universe
I rarely begin a painting with every image or meaning already determined. Sometimes the work grows from a memory, a place, a person or a particular feeling. At other times, I begin painting and allow the imagery to reveal itself gradually.
Cities, shorelines, musicians, animals, faces, dreams and imagined creatures can all find their way into the same visual world. Some figures become clear immediately. Others remain ghostlike or incomplete, appearing and disappearing among the surrounding forms. A small scene may suggest a story, but I do not always know where that story began or how it ends.
Painting gives me the freedom to bring together experiences that would normally be separated by time and place. Something remembered can exist beside something invented. A moment from life can become part of a dream. Whatever happens to be wandering through my universe is allowed to enter the work.
48x60 Witneses
70x84 Savoir Faire
30x40 The Dream
70x84 As I Remember It
48x48 Down The Rabbit Hole
24x30 A Place I Sometimes Go
24x30 Carnival
24x40 Night Signals
70x84 Strangers I Know
30x40 Synapse
24x84 The Messenger
70x84 First Contact
Moving between close views of my hands and wider perspectives inside past and present studio spaces, this film offers a brief glimpse into the physical act of painting. Each work develops slowly through layers of paint, texture, observation and intuition, allowing figures, memories and imagined forms to emerge as the process unfolds.
Built for Possibility
The scale, texture and iridescent qualities of these paintings are difficult to fully experience through a screen. Original works may be viewed by appointment at my art loft in downtown Savannah, where changing light reveals details, colors and figures that can appear differently throughout the day.
Collectors, designers, galleries and those interested in a particular painting are invited to inquire about current availability or arrange a private viewing.