Each of my paintings is meant to capture a feeling I have in one moment in time. My process is to work from my own photography. I deconstruct the captured image and then reconstruct it with paint. I isolate a series of individual moments. I assemble each with their own spirit and energy. They will live on, on their own.

Narrative storytelling and mythology inform my work. I am so grateful to my teachers who gave me the skills to communicate in this way. Making art is the birthright of all humans.

My Studio in San Francisco is based in an area of postindustrial decline, populated by architecture that is on the periphery of people’s vision, hidden either by design or by obsolescence, abandoned and forgotten.

My work has always been informed by my immediate environment, where I live, work and go has a direct impact on the subject matter I am drawn to. After moving from London to San Francisco in 2001, I became fascinated by structures displaying a sense of strength and energy, but ignored, threatened by the passage of time to ultimate defeat by corrosion and decay. My work is concerned with depicting how these giant structures appear, not through a sense of romantic yearning for the past, but by responding to location and documenting how they appear to me, now, in the moment.

As an artist who works primarily on paper, Printmaking is the perfect vehicle for me to explore these themes of atmosphere and corrosion. The Monoprint process enables me to create images that are clotted and heavy with dark ink. I use deeply saturated colors and textures not only to reveal the surfaces of the structures but also to permeate the emptiness around them. The physical nature of, and energy involved in making large format Monoprints imbues the work with the frank monumentality of its subject matter. Each step of the process, from drawing the image onto the plate, scouring and gouging, inking, and finally, wiping the surface for printing, suffuses the final print with a textural, tactile, physical quality difficult to achieve in other media, creating the perfect balance of color, texture and line.

Drawing is a crucial and integral part of my practice and I always carry a sketchbook, making quick pen and ink sketches or swift watercolor studies of my subject matter. This direct engagement enables me to emphasize the essence of the moment both physically and intellectually. Making use of the sketches when I make my prints allows me to stay true to that initial response, the gut feeling I experienced when I made my initial drawings. Only in that way can I hope to stay true to the emotional reaction of that specific time and place.

I'm captivated by creatures living amongst us that blur the line between the real and the imaginary. There is an archetypal beauty embodied by the albino peacock or the mysterious white elk that forces me to pause and feel the mystery.  These animals seem to exist outside of space and time.  So in my paintings, they live in a world of imaginary abstraction, far away from the dangers of human encroachment.

When I paint, I'm chasing an elusive equilibrium between form and formlessness… convinced that true beauty hangs in the balance. The chase involves dancing with the unknown: allowing an image to unfold rather than plodding along in a linear fashion. My creative process is a continual cycle of creation and destruction, so what ends up on the canvas is as much about what’s been added as what’s been taken away.

Words, symbols, and color, are used to create patterns that provoke thoughts and ideas relating to something I read or see that compels me. I then begin to process the thought or idea into visual elements. I first add layers of color and wax, then paint, draw, and scratch to create multi-layered, nearly 3-dimensional surfaces. I often work with repetition, particularly the repetition of a symbol, word, or a series of words or statements in linear, circular, or grid patterns. While working in this repetitive manner, the creating of the piece becomes a visual mantra for me, and the creation of the painting has as much importance as the finished work.

THE HUMAN FORM has it all: the challenge of Body and Spirit; to capture a MOMENT OF ITS ESSENCE renders a True Piece of Art!