This is the first series of abstractions that I consider the beginning of my mature work, and it was guided by the following story:

Shuzan (shou-shan 926-992) once held up his shippe* to an assembly of his disciples and declared: â??Call this a shippe and you assert; call it not a shippe and you negate. Now do not assert nor negate, and what would you call it? Speak! Speak!â? One of the disciples came out of the ranks, took the shippe away from the master, and breaking it in two, exclaimed, â??What is this?â? - D.T. Suzuki, Introduction to Zen Buddhism.

This story encourages me to question the identity of images and forms that I encounter rather than taking them at face value. I try to intuitively investigate these forms by searching out their essential qualities, and abandoning any preconceived conceptions I may have about them. This has led me through investigations of singular forms, and multiple objects, and has guided my hand into this current series based on compiling images, objects, places, symbols, thoughts, and concerns in the manner of a visual diary. These paintings reflect our ability to receive and assimilate a myriad of information on a daily basis. Although some of this information may be utterly tragic, some of it enlightening and uplifting, most of it is completely banal. Through intuitive investigation, I try to sort through and bring some type of order to this chaos of daily information overload. The paintings have become a record of an autobiographical visual language that consists of codes and symbols combined to suggest personal narratives that are juxtaposed next to or on top of previous statements. This creates a layered history in the paintings much in the same way as we store memories. Some shapes are strong and vivid, while others become broken and incoherent, only suggested by the pentimenti left as a visual reminder of their previous existence.

I view my paintings as a constant form of study, and I often create restrictions in one area to focus the study on another. In this current series of paintings I have been working within the restrictions of birch plywood, allowing the wood grain to provide the lines and shapes of the composition. I try not to alter the pattern of the grain, but instead use color to activate and alter the perceived composition of the wood grain, by using harmonies and contrasts to minimize and accentuate particular areas. This has helped to keep the focus on color and color relationships. It has also made me more aware of the diversity of line and shape that can be found in nature, which is something I can bring into future paintings of invented compositions.
To keep the colors from becoming too predictable I have started using 1980â??s Superman comic book covers as the source of my palettes. I chose the 80â??s, the time of my teenage years and Military Service, because Good and Evil were still being described to us in Black and White. The Cold War was still in progress, and we had a clearly defined enemy. Comics were drawn and written in those terms as well, and the colors were saturated and vibrant. As I develop these ideas further, I plan to delve into the comics of the 1990â??s and 2000â??s for sources of color palettes. At that time in comics, Good and Evil becomes more nebulous, often existing in a gray area in between, and the colors become more deep and neutral.
I am also influenced by the overall composition of the comic book page, and have recently started to build my structures with multiple sheets of plywood in varying shapes and sizes, changing the direction of the grain from panel to panel. I am intrigued by how comic artists use the size and shape of each panel to depict time and space, to speed through time, or linger on a moment, and I think such a device could be interesting to use in non-objective painting.

We are all subject to a flood of information on a daily, if not hourly, basis via a variety of technological means: emails, text messages, Facebook, Twitter, online newspapers, countless websites, as well as television and radio. With such a wide array of information from so many sources, one is obligated to discern what is true, verifiable, and good; and what is false, speculative, inflammatory, and bad.

Iâ??ve become interested in how our ability to receive and assimilate a myriad of information on a constant basis can be reflected in a 2-dimensional format. In my paintings, I employ complex compositions and an autobiographical visual language consisting of codes and symbols. Each painting possesses a layered history: As new statements are juxtaposed next to or on top of earlier ones, the paintings begin to suggest the manner in which we store memories or assimilate and make sense of information. Some shapes are strong and vivid, while others become broken and incoherent, only suggested by the pentimenti left as a visual reminder of their previous existence.

Coupled with my interest in having composition reflect this contemporary media deluge is my use of color to relay information. For instance, comic books have traditionally used certain color schemes to portray truth or falsehood, as well as universal notions of good and evil. Comic book characters in their oversized bodies, personalities, and colorful costumes have become a kind of contemporary American mythology, and like all mythologies they are employed to express timeless dualities. I enjoy using palettes derived from depictions of superheroes and super villains because these conflicting systems of signification serve as mirrors of the world we live in.

I did this series of paintings while at a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in January 2010. I would do one painting a day with a two hour time limit in an attempt to keep them fresh, gestural, and uninhibited. They also served as impetus for the larger painting I was working on at the residency, and have continued to influence my larger paintings.

As I work on large paintings, I like to work on small paintings to help develop the language I then try to use in the larger works.

In this project I 'deleted' sketches from a sketchbook I used in 2004 with vigorous gesso drawing. I then transferred small bits of compositions of paintings I completed between 1995-2014.

These paintings on paper are re-addressed sketchbook pages from sketchbooks I used in 2004. I transferred small bits of compositions from paintings that I had done from 1995-2014. This juxtaposition of moments of my personal art history creates new associations, or new memories.

We are all subject to a flood of information on a daily, if not hourly, basis via a variety of technological means: emails, text messages, Facebook, Twitter, online newspapers, countless websites, as well as television and radio. With such a wide array of information from so many sources, one is obligated to discern what is true, verifiable, and good; and what is false, speculative, inflammatory, and bad.

I’ve become interested in how our ability to receive and assimilate a myriad of information on a constant basis can be reflected in a 2-dimensional format. In my paintings, I employ complex compositions and an autobiographical visual language consisting of codes and symbols. Each painting possesses a layered history: As new statements are juxtaposed next to or on top of earlier ones, the paintings begin to suggest the manner in which we store memories or assimilate and make sense of information. Some shapes are strong and vivid, while others become broken and incoherent, only suggested by the pentimenti left as a visual reminder of their previous existence.

In the ‘New Organon’, published in 1620, Francis Bacon uses the word ‘manipular’ to describe a way in which we order the world. The ‘maniple’ is the way in which we make sense of multiplicity, of the noise of the ‘infinite’ by holding that which is near in the finite space of the hand.* The information age has brought the noise of the infinite to us in ways that seem deceptively manageable, but often add to the confusion of our daily lives. Memory has both evolved and devolved simultaneously. Our ability to receive and assimilate a myriad of information on a constant basis has been enhanced through the Internet, smart phones, and other Wi-Fi connected devices. I have become interested in attempting to convey this multilayered process in a two-dimensional format. I seek to employ complex compositions that utilize color to both organize and confound space. By vacillating between a Munsell Color System, a more scientific and practical approach to color, and the traditional 12 step color wheel we were taught in school in the same painting, often in adjacent areas, we see how different complementary pairings can activate and enhance the spatial qualities of color. Utilizing multiple combinations of harmonies and contrasts of color’s physical properties allows planes to shift back and forth in our visual perception. When this use of color is combined with layers of traced portions of some of my previous paintings it creates a multifaceted history. As these tracings are juxtaposed, the reconfigured paintings begin to suggest the manner in which we store memories, assimilate and make sense of information. Color is central in formalizing the haphazard collection of my visual diary.


* Rosenberg, Terry E.. 2008. New Beginnings and Monstrous Births: Notes Towards an Appreciation of Ideational Drawing. In: Steve Garner, ed. Writing on Drawing: Essays on Drawing Practice and Research. Bristol: Intellect, pp. 109-124. ISBN 9781841502007

My predecessor at McDaniel College, Wasyl Palijczuk, gave me a stack of old canvases he had started years ago, but never finished. He said I could give them to students to paint over, but asked if I could work on one of them, but let some of his painting show through. I decided to work on all of the canvases layering tracings of 20 years of my paintings overtop of his, allowing our artistic history to merge and become relevant again as Asger Jorn called for when he wrote the following:
"Be modern,
collectors, museums.
If you have old paintings,
do not despair.
Retain your memories
but détourn them
so that they correspond with your era.
Why reject the old
if one can modernize it
with a few strokes of the brush?
This casts a bit of contemporaneity
on your old culture.
Be up to date,
and distinguished
at the same time.
Painting is over.
You might as well finish it off.
Détourn.
Long live painting.