My Artist Statement

I am a colorist at heart. Color is the most important element in my work. It is what I look for in all the artwork that I study and what I remember most. It is what inspires me. I believe in color. I believe in using it in its most saturated and unadulterated form. I could never choose a favorite because I love them all. After all, if the human eye really is capable of seeing 7 million different colors, how can I choose just one? Nothing gives me greater pleasure than the harmonious union of colors. In my work, I like to bring together as many as I can. Ever since I first began to paint, I have been entangled in a torrid love affair with garish colors.As an artist, I revel in the process of creation. I am enamored of my materials. I love brushes, paints, oil pastels, colored pencils, and charcoal. I love working with found objects: pieces of cardboard, bubble wrap, scraps and scrapings and chunks of dried-up leftover paint. I also love texture. Perhaps it’s because I once worked as a museum guard. I love tantalizing viewers with impasto surfaces that just beg to be explored with the fingertips, though, of course, that is largely forbidden in the glass case and velvet rope milieu of the art world.

My sources of inspiration are diverse and eclectic: Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Romare Bearden, Gustav Klimt, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Karim Rashid, Tricia Guild, traditional and contemporary art and textiles from Mexico, India, and Africa, the quirky plastic concoctions of assemblage artist Julie Wishmeyer, Mexican embroidery and tiles, the mirror-embellished cloth of the Rajastani and Gujarati regions of India, and beadwork from the Ndebele and the Masai people of Africa.

Throughout my life, I've had numerous interests in various disciplines of the arts. As an avid picture book reader, in kindergarten I was sure that I'd become an author/illustrator when I grew up. Later I found myself interested in cartooning, fashion design, photography, graphic design, digital art, and finally interior design. But there has always been a common thread binding my interests together, and that is my love of drawing. For me drawing is more than just an avocation. It's a compulsion. I absolutely have to draw. Despite their differences, all the fields that interest me are based upon the same basic principles, and often I find that mixed media work best allows me to express the universal principles of design.