Artist Statement

My paintings are narrative in nature, and therefore, convey some of the drama of stories. My work is a representation of the tensions between life and the spirituality of myth. The power of the narrative in my work is defined through observations of the conditions of human experience of life. Eternal symbols and stories of spiritual power have passed through countless hands from all people from prehistory forward spreading through myths and dramatic works, and my narratives add to the mana of this tradition. This mythological reality I sense defines something symbolic, timeless, and real about our psychology and the way we view ourselves. Mythically spiritual narratives and symbols hold the power of our turmoil, fear, and rage against meaninglessness. We are psychologically fixed on the spiritual sense in all myths because we sense intuitively that they globally hold a fundamental power and meaning to us at a basic level no matter what time, country, or people they come from.

My paintings depict reality as I see it, since they are representational, but they also have a painterly quality. Indicated through my handling of the paint as a material, I create works of art, not simply photographic reproductions of reality. I respond spiritually to the life of the paint to render forms on the surface of canvas. The look and feel of the surface of the canvas is important, as my brushwork reveals form through mark-making that defines enough detail for clarity in the identity of the work and reveals my visual identification with the subject in the experience in painting. I let the subjects that I am representing speak to me to reveal an essence. As that identity is communicated, there is another conversation going on with the paint and the surface of the canvas creating a tension. The sense of the spiritual becomes the lubricant to release tension, as the mana or force moves. I act like an intelligent circuit or processor defining the paths between the narrative and the paint as a medium of communication. What is not shown in a painting defines just as much as what is placed in the painting the meaning and intent of the work as I render and compose. The arrangements of my painting form an interconnection of expansive spaces with patterns and congestions that dominate the paintings, are like the fullness and patterning in the works of Pollack, Bonnard, or Vuillard. My compositional renderings of form and space are perceptual, as they are linked to what is seen, felt, and remembered from a life of experiences.

I create narrative paintings that capture spiritual inner form as felt from my observation. The narrative of my paintings are on the one hand rooted in what is seen, felt, and remembered from a life of experiences, while in their depiction of the sensual world, the paintings uncover an observed presence of the spiritual power of mana. The work reveals a perception of a greater state, where the paintings communicate a vision through the paint as a material that is beyond material relationships with existence to become a representation of a greater human experience in conveying universal themes. I recognized this experience as a boy sitting with my dog on a hill in the prairie grass feeling the wind. In the Flint Hills of Kansas, I observed an intuitive or transcendental relationship with nature that stirred in me the feelings of a greater reality than merely that of survival.

My approach to the narrative in art and the act of painting is informed by a tradition of narrative painting that includes artists like Stanley Spencer, Francis Bacon, Jerome Witkin, Odd Nerdrum, as well as movements like Abstract Expressionism. The works offer a sense of mana or power in traditional narratives that change life into engagements between the poetic and reality. My paintings create tensions between painting and life in an experience that extends beyond the confines of the canvas. Individuals then re-describe the works with the implications of their own experience transforming reality into a symbolic journey through a sacredly poetic experience. It is up to viewers to find their own reflection in the work that can reveal the power of the transmutation of the human experience into the transcendental and spiritual.