Artist's Statement

So many times, a painting happens when you just can't shake the vision out of your head. It keeps coming back to haunt you, sometimes as a story, clairvoyant or mythological, sometimes a scene from the natural world so powerful you have to interpret it. Lately, hiking to the end of trails in Big Bend, West Texas and the Gila Wilderness, New Mexico leads me to the most profound experience. The process is not about returning to the studio to render my photographs into painterly canvases. It's about returning to interpret the energy found in those vast and remote places, almost painting with my eyes closed.