I paint landscapes in oil on canvas. I use palette knife or brush. Weather permitting, I paint in the freshness of the moment “en plein air.” This technique lends itself to the smaller paintings. The canvas needs to be covered with speed and energy– for me that means in about two hours. The light changes in that amount of time and it becomes a different picture.
I also paint when I travel– sometimes it is necessary to get away from daily cares and chores to carve out time for an intensive painting experience. The rigor of this type of painting, in unfamiliar surroundings, means that I am coming to a series of paintings with only one rule – and that is to paint what ever is in front of me, – no preconceptions, no mulling over what or where, just find the beauty in whatever first strikes the eye. It recharges my painting and I always come back with some new understanding of the complexity of color or design.
I also paint retrospectively in the studio, either from oil sketches or photographs, but always from landscape that I have experienced. These become the larger paintings, with more attention to detail, design, choice and intentionality. This year I am experimenting with scale, my largest canvasses are 36″ X 48″.
My work does not depict, but evokes. I like to think of my painting as inhabiting the space between representation and abstraction. Bits of paint on the surface of the canvas, abstract marks, fragmenting the subject matter, coalesces into believable landscape at a distance. to tickle the mind with the trick of recognition, and create depth, distance, movement.