In 1990, when I began to paint seriously, I wryly referred to my work as “paintings in the dark” as my demanding “real" job would only afford time to paint from 10 P.M. until the wee morning hours. Many nights were spent in a small apartment in front of my easel like this, with a paper pallet on the low stool at my knee and an antique candelabra lamp blazing over my shoulder. I kept to this vampiric schedule until February 2017, when I was able to switch to painting full time.

I tend to be fascinated with beer bottle caps, wine labels, logos, coins—anything with a simple strong image—and so my paintings display a similar icon-like economy. Having said that, color—opaque, clean, fauve—is probably the distinguishing feature of my art. The painting’s subject matter—trees, flowers, human figure—is incidental, merely a language to suspend shape and color. The challenge is to stitch together these incidents of shape and color to achieve that pleasing oneness one calls ‘a painting’. Motion and synchronicity, contrast and balance press the individual elements to conform to the whole.

Working exclusively in oil on canvas, masonite or wood panel, I usually begin by scribbling a vague sketch in red or turquoise and, through a heuristic process of massaging the pictorial elements, gradually resolve the mess into a coherent whole. On rare occasions I start from a thumbnail sketch, and even more rarely from an external image from nature or with another artist’s work in mind.

Philosophically, I have striven to create visually attractive pieces, believing that beauty is its own profundity.

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