Artist's Statement
I have been working as a full-time artist since 1985. I spent the summer studying at the Art Students League in New York City and upon returning to Kansas, I started painting watercolor landscapes. My method of working grew out of my love for and training in photography. I began to photograph the landscape with the specific purpose to use the images, not as finished works, but for refrence material for paintings.
My early watercolors were very tight and literal. I worked in long horizontal formats and paintings up to 40" x 60". My desire to work larger eventually led me to working with acrylic on canvas. Since acrylic is a water based media, the progression was natural. For many years, I worked both with watercolor and acrylic, often painting acrylic on gessoed watercolor paper. This allowed me to work with many layers of thin glazes and still have the look of a watercolor.
Working in acrylic has its own special problems. First, is the fact that it dries very quickly, making it difficult to blend. Secondly, acrylic changes color when it dries. This makes color matching very difficult. It was no problem however, to do this if I worked small. Again, my desire to work larger then led me to oils. After several years of struggle and experimentation, I am finally able to make oil do what I want. Oil is now my main medium.
My subject matter has changed somewhat over the years. My early watercolors were strictly winter scenes and very monochromatic. Switching to acrylic allowed me to expand my range to fall and summer paintings. I also began to paint more Fling Hills scenes and I experimented with painting images from my travels which included the Grand Canyon, Spain, France and Italy. In the early 90's I became fascinated with the annual prairie burning and have produced many dramatic paintings of the evening fires. These paintings have been featured in national artist's magazines, state publications and has led to many major commissions.
Most recently, I have set myself up the challenge of painting the figure in the landscape. Introducing the human element in an otherwise empty landscape changes the whole dynamic of what it considered a traditional landscape. Newer works also include a series of what I am calling "remembered landscapes". Since starting my career in 1984, I have painted hundreds of landscapes using literal refrence material. In my new work, I am relying on impressions and recollections of past encounters with nature. Years of direct observation and refinement of my technical skills now allow me to go beyond literal interpretations of the landscape. My goal is to create ambiguity or mystery, to reveal what is felt but not seen, to create something absolutely unique, to explore form out of curiosity and to reveal my private vision. My paintings still come across as "landscape" but also convey the idea that another reality lies beyond the world of appearances.