Artist Statement

I have always been an observer. I am drawn to what happens beneath the surface, to what is communicated quietly rather than declared. I think that instinct has always been present in my work, although it has taken me time to understand how deeply connected it is to the way I make art.

I am interested in the edge of visibility. Forms that emerge but do not fully announce themselves. Marks that interrupt but do not dominate. Color that is restrained but still carries feeling. I am less interested in describing something than in creating a space where something can slowly reveal itself.

Photography gave me a way to participate while remaining an observer. For more than two decades, I worked from behind the camera, looking closely, framing and directing without having to place myself at the center. When I returned to painting, I began to recognize that same tension in the work: the desire to reveal something alongside the instinct to hold it back.

My paintings develop through a process of building up and taking away. I pour, brush, draw, wipe, scratch, cover and expose. Often the most important decisions are about what to remove. I may make a strong gesture only to partially erase it, or cover an area and allow fragments of what was underneath to remain visible. I rarely begin with a fixed image in mind. The painting develops through this back and forth, between intention and intuition, control and release.

Restraint is important to me. I am drawn to limited palettes, open space, softened edges and small interruptions that can shift the balance of an entire surface. There is often a point when I have to resist the urge to add more and instead allow the painting to remain unresolved.

Over time, I have come to recognize that this process reflects something personal. There is a tension in me between wanting to express something and wanting to hold something back. Painting gives me a place where those two impulses can exist together without needing to be resolved.

I am not looking for complete clarity. I am interested in what happens just before something becomes fully visible, in the space between silence and expression, presence and absence, hiding and showing. That uncertain space is where the work feels most alive to me.