Laguna College of Art + Design

What makes a place more than the sum of its physical parts? How can I imbue a painting of that place with the emotions, memories and associations that make it deeply significant in my life? These questions form the foundation of my mixed media landscape paintings.

Throughout my life, I have become attached to natural areas near where I’ve lived, such as Crystal Cove State Park in California, Hickory Hill Park in Iowa, Snowy Range in Wyoming, and Red Mountain Open Space in Colorado. Visiting these locations across different seasons and states of mind, I build deeply rooted connections while recalling past experiences in that same landscape. I developed my process of layering watercolor, ink, colored pencil, collage, clear gesso, oil paint, and other media to convey the variety and complexity of these connections. With select goals from expressionism and impressionism, I seek to impart what these places mean to me in a manner that transcends representational accuracy. I develop my observational skills with plein air studies and use this visual information to give each painting an authentic framework of colors, light and shapes from the ecosystem it represents. Simultaneously, I fragment the images with abstracted marks, smaller scenes from different perspectives or in unrealistic color schemes, transparent figures or animals, and collaged textures to amplify my composite impressions of how I experience each place.