See also: Resume
It is hard to explain something that I have found as a substitute for words. My images are able to translate a surrounding that for me is otherwise indescribable. When encircled by a poetry of lines and tones occurring harmoniously in nature, I feel awed and small in the enormous expanse. I see this space not only as a location, but an inspired idea awaiting my translation. The concept of being part of something larger compels my ideas and intentions in my work. Likewise, it is easy to imagine that others have also felt this sensation. This shared response to landscape allows observers to feel the presence of others without their actually being present.
There is a silence in the expanse of landscape that conveys a sense of calm. And I find, although it is an abstract idea, that in the silence there is not a sense of isolation, but rather, a sensation that this experience is being shared. This idea comes from the notion that the landscape evokes something larger than yourself, and others have felt this too, although in different ways.
Accordingly, my landscapes are printed, painted, and constructed images meant to give a degree of ambiguity that allows them to work on different levels for different people. The idea is to provoke a sense of familiarity not by presenting an accurate description but rather an intrinsic and conceptual image which evokes a larger entity. Every piece is meant to envelop the viewer, just as a landscape would. But the works are on a small scale to make the experience intimate. The work’s detail gives a close, clear connection to the world created within it. That link is associated with the human relationship to the enormity of a landscape; one feels small but connected by virtue of others having been part of the same scape. My viewer is not alone, but instead, struck by a silence that is charged by the notion of others in this immense space. In actuality, it is I with whom they share this silence if only because it is my image they see and connect with.
I am attempting to share my world, to explain that this work is my greatest passion, and to give an understanding that these lines, shapes, and subtleties of tone bring me a sense of calm, peace, and awe. There is something inside me that needs to create—something that is so drawn to the lines that I want nothing else. I see the poetry of line everywhere. I want the viewer to stop and, if only for a moment, understand that this is my truest form of communication. I do not wish to offer visual social discourse; I am simply trying to express beauty.
I have found inspiration in various artists, all of whom have a particular poetry in line and composition that draws me to their work.
Japanese and Chinese woodblock prints, mainly landscape, have made me aware of the importance and weight of the simple line and the space that is not completely real. Many prints of the Art Nouveau period were also influenced by these Asian artists and attract me in a similar manner. The etchings of Rembrandt are an inspiration for their rich, dark accumulation of layered line in contrast to the ephemeral faint marks that go back into space. Andrew Wyeth’s landscapes have a heightened sense of reality that suggest abstraction in being almost too real. I am also attracted to the sense of space Wyeth creates and the composition of figures and curves. Late Gothic and early Renaissance paintings have a beautiful sense of poetry in the lines of garments and the curves of the groupings of figures. Specifically, it is Duccio’s use of line to follow the edges of his curving robes, Giovanni Belinni’s compositions of curves as his figure’s robes and arms line up throughout the paintings, and Botticelli’s distortion of the human figure to create a more beautiful line that serve as clear inspiration for my work.
On the whole, the work that I am most attracted to and inspired by is filled with a sense of calm and beauty in line and form.
See also: Resume