Artist Statement

You don’t need to look very far to be surrounded by beauty outside. My hope is to bring my version of that beauty to the inside of our homes. 

I once read a book about “looking and being present while walking”. This has influenced the way I paint.

Nature stimulates my senses, so I spend a lot of time outside. I find myself studying details more now, instead of just looking at the big picture . 

This has helped me bring dimension to my paintings , as I now have a better sense of how light creates form and how one thing influences the way something else appears. 

My process is unique in the sense that I design my paintings from these exploratory memories , as opposed to photo references or painting plein air. 

Having a background as a designer and a maker, influences my process as well. I always start with a vision, but it is once I let go of that and let my memory and emotions work together and take over, that I am able to design paintings with the right aesthetics . 

I consider my paintings are finished and successful once I reach the place where they are neat and orderly but they still make you wonder why, or what, some element is , or why some part of it is there, or not.  

Although I love and do produce some non objective work , most of my paintings are abstract realism. I predominately use acrylic paint because I love the flexibility . Acrylics give me the ability to paint layers of different colours with a dry brush or tool , creating texture and giving illusions of softness and interesting hues . It dries quickly and lets me move it around, smear, smudge and remove without affecting the layer below. Other than brushes and my fingers, the tools I use are basic and usually repurposed household items. Toothbrushes, cardboard, cutlery, string, skewers, and plastic wrap. 

Rarely will any of my paintings be similar through every layer. My underpainting is my original vision and I build from there, allowing textures from my previous layers’ to dictate the design of the next layers. 

Depending how the character of the painting develops, I also incorporate paper, mediums, pastels and markers and find they all work well together to create interesting contemporary pieces of art.

Thank you for viewing my work.