I paint what I see. I don’t make this stuff up. It’s just there. Crowded places. Reality. What we see every day and maybe seldom notice. I notice.

I like to paint a nice complicated mess… a beach scene packed with sunbathers, coolers, umbrellas… a city street filled with cars, lights, people, signs… a work site packed with workers in neon, cones, dirt, construction vehicles.

To me, the manmade world is as peaceful and serene as any natural, uninhabited landscape. I find the manmade elements visually more beautiful and intriguing than anything else in a scene. Without the telephone poles, wires, umbrellas, people, lights, it’s just a landscape. But show me a complicated mess and I’ll find visual connections and balance and in the end a perfect calm.

We are limited to what our eye can focus on and I like to explore our landscapes through the varying visual acuity that occurs every day. The view through a rainy, wet windshield or a dirty, smeary window. What we see within the waves of the surf. The blurry movement of what we see driving or running or turning our head quickly…what’s visible just outside our primary focus but becomes a part of it.

While painting a scene, a story gradually appears within the shapes, and movement and colors. The viewer may find their own story. I name each painting as simply as I can – because I want the viewer to decide for themselves what it’s ultimately about. And whatever they see, if I’ve done my job, it’s a darn good story.