I make a variety of artwork, including paintings on canvas, works on paper, and mixed media assemblages; however, painting is the foundation of my work. I paint primarily with acrylics using a combination of airbrushing and traditional paintbrush techniques. I often lend an aged or antiqued feel to my pieces by strategically scraping away paint, sanding parts of the image, and layering paints and plasters to achieve the look of rusting metal. People often ask if my work involves any photography and the answer is “no”; the imagery in my artwork is all painted by hand.

The mixed media works of my Time Machines and Futura Obscura series merge painting with the art of assemblage. The pieces, at their core, are paintings on canvas, masonite, or other surfaces I construct by hand. Then, at various stages of creating each one, I integrate 3-dimensional, sculptural elements. 

The attachments I incorporate into the paintings are unique to each piece and include objects such as vintage or salvaged hardware, tubing, and carved wood. Many have one-of-a-kind antique pieces attached, such as handles, gauges, and pulleys. I also use many different types of salvaged materials, including leather I mold into curved shapes, discarded wood I construct into frames, and other “recycled” objects found in the alleys behind my studio. I also sometimes take new materials, like pipes, metal hardware, or hand-carved wood, and paint them to look like old, weathered metal.

With my work, I am exploring the theme of perception and how what we perceive may not always be what is there in reality.  My work is based on the ancient “trompe l’oeil” technique (meaning, “to fool the eye”) that was used by the Greeks and Romans to visually create space where there is none.  Traditionally, a window would be painted to create the illusion of space and I got the idea to further obscure the line between two- and three-dimensional perception by adding real objects to the painted imagery. I strive to create a seamless flow between the paint and objects, drawing the viewer in for a closer look to see what is real and what is painted.

On another level, I want my work to capture the feeling of glimpsing into a another dimension or time. I often juxtapose surreal or mechanical elements with an aged texture and antique parts to recall different time periods within a single piece. I have also been continually drawn to the imagery of the seascape, for it’s timeless quality that could be from the past, present, or future. With many pieces, I try to evoke the nostalgia of a past era and, in particular, I am inspired by the aesthetics of the Art Nouveau movement (1890-1910). In fact, I make many of my “machines” to look like found artifacts from the turn-of-the-century and some pay homage specifically to the Columbian Exposition of 1893, which took place in Chicago and is commonly referred to as “The White City”.

In addition to my assemblage-oriented art, I also create traditional paintings, inspired by many of the same concepts that inform my mixed media work. I like to make works on paper that look like archived fragments peering into another space or time, and often tear the edges of the paper to give them an aged feel. Many of my paintings portray futuristic, surreal, or alien imagery in a style that appears to be aged, like an antique photograph. With my Soundscapes series, for example, I paint otherworldly ‘sound machines’ setting up audio transmission stations in pastoral landscapes, while the paintings of my Remembering the Future series present an imagined future of floating sea creatures, industrial wastelands, hovering networks of machinery, and UFOs foraging flooded landscapes.