ARTIST STATEMENT

The image of a falling horse has been with me for some time now, but I never painted it.  I've been a non-representational abstract painter for nearly 3 decades, and introducing figurative elements feels especially vulnerable and also required of the time.  There are so many associations; political, emotional, symbolic, even mythic. The horse as symbol for empire, the inversion as a reference to tarot, a nod to surrealism perhaps, an anxiety triggered by the visual situation itself. We live in a time of immense cultural and political uncertainty.  The job of the artist is to speak of their time; making the personal universal, and if one is very fortunate, enduring. I think these will mean different things to different people, and I don’t think anyone would be wrong.

​

This feels like a cultural and historic moment that calls for stories.  There is a reason ancient mythologies resonate with us, a reason the Christian prophet spoke in parables.  Sometimes we have to speak in allegory to give voice to the truth because the lies are so much louder. I feel we're hard wired for stores, however abstract.

​

These paintings came at a strange time. In all the years of painting I have never been blocked. I’ve never experienced the state of not knowing what to paint. When I found myself in that place in the spring of 2024 I kept going to the studio. I didn’t paint. I just sat there. I read, napped, and waited. Like most complex problems, if one waits long enough a solution will appear. My studio practice is an extension of my meditation practice (or is it the other way around?).  I must open myself to ideas and flow from a space of quiet repetition and lack of expectation.  

​

I feel these succeed best when they remain loose. I’m aware of the anatomy, but choose to stay abstract and childlike in the approach and execution. I also love the brokenness of the lines and resulting figures, as extensions of broader metaphors.  I feel I've retained the strength of the gesture from my previous non-representational work.