My recent works follow two main paths, observational paintings and paintings that are the result of an internal investigation. The paintings were painted in two places, my studio in Baltimore County Maryland and in Chianti Italy, over the last few years. These two paths developed in the aftermath of the pandemic and along my continuing journey as a parent.
The internal works consist of allegorical fever dreams, and far away landscapes. Whether from life or internally developed, my works are all part of a process of looking. Some paintings involve meditating on what is means to be a father, or to have been a child. Some involve looking at the inside of an idea or dream, as the world, and I, and loved one’s change. These paintings are are allegories striving to describe the gaps between what I would like to articulate and what I can’t.
 

Landscape paintings painted on location.

Offering (2021)

These paintings are inspired by the unknown and the unknowable.
Themes  include nature as a guide and source of personal healing. Some of my paintings take
inspiration from both rituals and votives as manifestations of desire and prayer.

The Forest Edge (2020)

The forest edge is a margin between two worlds. It is a transition zone between light and shade, the highly cultivated and the wild. It can serve as an entrance, but can also be dense and hard to penetrate.

Kindling/Tinder (2019)

The five paintings in the series Kindling/Tinder evolved from looking specifically at the bones of plants in late fall through early spring.  Bare branches and dry brush hold the promise of new growth and seed. In an unfamiliar landscape they are place holders for what is about to come.  The bare twigs, grass, and goldenrod I depict in my series are materials that might be used to start a fire. 

Ideas of realization, birth, rebirth, and struggle inform the works in this series.

Throughout most of these works, hands search, climb, embrace, push forward, and fall back, both together and separately. They interweave across the picture plane through a space that is hinted at or imagined.

Some of the works use paper as an observed setting. Collected ephemera and detritus such as Bingo cards act as the raw materials of assemblages, which I observe and interpret through oil paint and brush.