Landscape

I returned back to the Bay Area in 2011 after working and studying in New York City during a six-year period. I had been working and living in Brooklyn NY where I had maintained a studio while attending the MFA program at Parsons The New School for Design, and before that a four-year program in Los Angeles at Otis College of Art and Design.

Finding myself once again in northern California was a cultural and inspirational shock, I was literally taken aback by the raw beauty of the natural environment here. I was so inspired in fact that I pivoted my focus towards Plein-Aire painting. Although my practice included and still includes expressionism, impressionism and realism in scenes and figurative painting, I discovered the joy of getting the canvas out of the studio and into this, our lovely Central Coast. For me, working from life is an exercise in really seeing the subject and not simply looking at it. Finding true form and true color to produce the desired ambiance. Allowing that scene which is stretched out before me to bend me to its will, not it to mine. The vision of the finished painting comes streaming through the eye, to my hand and finally onto the surface itself.