Artist Statement

 

I am a Bach. I believe in the Baroque. As a Bach, music has always played an integral role in my life. My work reflects both the centrality of music and the influence of the other great Bach, Johann Sebastian. Like the musical creations of J. S. Bach, my work begins within a strong and structured framework and a divinely ordered worldview. A few correlations between my work and baroque music include the surface of my paintings as a parallel to melody, my works’ underlying structure and petimenti are equivalent to harmony.

 

I work with a simple, non-objective grid structure and repeat elemental building blocks such as:

            Recurring central forms

            Scraping down areas

            Playing imperfect, soft edges against hard edges

            Offering small openings to reveal what is below

            Scumbling

            Geometric armature of form

 

I seek to create work that expresses joy, enthusiasm, and that has a parallel structure which is free and spontaneous yet conceals an immense rigor. To this end, I offer expression within a conceptual framework. I begin with the color wheel to dictate the palette. I build upon the basic structure of the grid and add elements with embellishments that occur spontaneously, repeat, and change.

 

Artist informing my body of work are Hans Hofmann, Richard Diebenkorn, Barnett Newman, Moe Brooker, Odili Donald Odita, and Stanley Whitney.