Artist Statement
The 2016 election was the beginning in a very dark place. Swamp was one of the first paintings I completed after the election. From its intentionally muddy colors I moved to working solely with darkness. The Black | Not Black series worked with this darkness. I worked towards black, first using blacks then learning how to mix the darkness without black.
For me painting is an activity that filters experience through sensibility. I paint through a woven matrix of string that demands that I am always on the surface of the painting. Gesture is restricted and time is advanced in a kind of geologic accumulation of layers. These layers of paint become a history, just as their historical sources come from specific events and may be reflected in the title, or included as source material on the back, or hidden inside, the painting.