I began painting in the early 1980s with a focus on the human figure. As I explored space in relation to the figure, I sought to find a middle ground between the traditional notion of depicted space and the flat space of Modernism.
The formal qualities of my earlier paintings recall decaying photographs, drawings or artifacts, with surface textures that reference processes such as mold and oxidization. These qualities are visual metaphors for the human experience, and together with the image of the figure, refer to themes of solitude, alienation, and desire.
In 2005 my focus shifted to the depiction of light as it describes, or in some cases obliterates, space and figures. I replaced abstract space with urban landscapes, generating my images from the streets of the city. Space and figures appear more realistic but are often distorted or abstracted by light.
My latest paintings deepen the exploration of the relationship between painting and photography and their respective means of depicting light. In these images, generated unconsciously, I explore the simultaneous creation and destruction of images that can occur in the analog photographic process, with its trickiness of over and under exposure, unintended chemical reactions, and the physicality of its technology.
By moving from scenes drawn from the world around us to an unconscious approach to creating images, I depict that drama, as if the paintings are literally developing as we look at them, with both creation and destruction happening at once.
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