Through my figurative paintings I endeavor to express the human need for connection and belonging and the difficulty of achieving either.

Title: Family Outing Title: Animales Mixed medium- colored tissue paper and india ink on paper.

THE HUMAN FORM has it all: the challenge of Body and Spirit; to capture a MOMENT OF ITS ESSENCE renders a True Piece of Art!

I am fascinated by structure and change as it manifests itself around me: in nature, caused by human intervention, and the seemingly random. Structure and change can be experienced through comparison, movement, and by paying attention to the passing of time. As such, my subjects range from large scale natural and everyday environments to studies of small scale details.

Photography focuses my attention, draws me into the present, and allows me to perceive more intensively than otherwise. The camera lets me capture and share this experience, by freezing or blurring movement, by stretching or compressing time, by pointing to obscure detail. To stop and connect with the present moment has become the rare occasion for many. This way of living diminishes the capacity to perceive the subtleties around us. My images are meant to both reflect this transitory quality, as well as offer counterpoints to it.

Contemporary culture, human folly and an obsessive curiosity for the macabre provide the fuel for my subject matter. My work is inspired by the natural sciences as well as by the classical drawing techniques of the old masters, including anatomical studies by artists such as Andreas Vesalius and Bernhard Siegfried Albinus. My recent paintings incorporate anatomical imagery to explore the human psychological condition, such as cutaway skulls portraying our basic human drives and the thin veneer of humanity overlaying our animal nature.

Art is always a process of discovery for me. One of my goals as an artist is to coax viewers into noticing more details about their environment through the experience of looking at or remembering my paintings -- perhaps, if I'm successful, sharing or extending my own process of discovery. I have both figurative and abstract bodies of work. When I begin a new body of work, I feel like I am learning a new language.

I work to sustain that first glimpse of an image through the process of producing a painting.  The many layers of paint are used to first break down an image, then to rebuild it.  The result is somewhere between representation and abstraction: when a painting expresses what I cannot with words.  I can communicate in a language of my own making.

I started painting as a way to record and study places.  This evolved naturally from my work as an architect.  I attended the University of Michigan where I received degrees in Architecture and first started painting.  I currently live and work in San Francisco.