This series of paintings, created over the past eighteen months, seems to have nothing, yet everything, to do with my past work. It is a complete departure from anything I've created in the past, yet contains all that I have created in the past in each and every painting. While I've been making art my entire life, I began painting seriously with oils on canvas in the late nineties at my loft in DUMBO Brooklyn and later explored plein air landscape painting when I moved to the woods in Northern Westchester. For a long time, I tried to break with my strengths —drawing and color— to concentrate on building color next to color without relying on shapes. There was also a period where I focused on structure using chairoscuro techniques. After twenty years of these pursuits, I achieved a level of confidence in my work that allowed me to return to my love of line and shape, buoyed by my use of color. I am enjoying painting again, like I did when I first discovered it as a child. It is that joy in discovery that has allowed me to create [what I feel is] my best work.
