Artist Statement

These small paintings require and reward sustained looking. Their careful elaboration is consistent even as modes of representation are varied at whim: strict observational realism; ‘drawing’ from memory; photorealism; and iconographic symbolism.

The chalk-gesso prepared panels are meticulously crafted and their preciousness vies for attention over the images represented. Exposed surface strata, low-relief, optical distortions, or other subtle interruptions in illusionism all draw attention to the process of seeing, making, and reaching for - beyond - the thing depicted.

Each painting can stand alone but is conceived in relation to the others like images in a poem, together suggesting but not satisfying a narrative. Themes are drawn from my personal history, especially the experiences of loss and metanoia. The isolated objects represented are informed by the theology of sacramental signs, that is visible realities housing invisible truths.