Encountered On the AT

As a landscape artist, I invite the viewer to accompany me on my journey as we experience the wilds of the Appalachian Trail’s flowing streams, tumultuous river gorges, dynamic cascading waterfalls, and secluded pristine lakes together. Through the use of a limited monochromatic palette and a variety of acrylic mediums I capture the beauty of New York City’s turbulent waterways and our national, state and provincial parks.
My landscapes depict nature in its most essential form without the distraction of man-made structures or figures. I believe that a landscape has the power to influence a culture’s attitude toward nature and, as such is a meaningful art form.

Nature is constantly in motion and as an artist I have developed my observational skills to interpret the attributes of a particular thought changing landscape.
My paintings offer the viewer a variety of atmospheric effects and images. Concentrating on water in nature has liberated both my brush stroke and my enthusiasm to experiment. Each scene inspires its own response, including my application of wet paint to wet surface to delineate the often chaotic activity of pools, drips and streaks. I am inspired by the multitude of naturally occurring visual abstractions that can be discovered in an in-depth exploration of nature that simultaneously challenges and enhances my artistic ability.

I often create small studies of proposed large scale paintings. I focus on the essential elements and principals of art: perspective, line, color, space, shape, texture, contrast and balance while observing, and constructing a landscape composition. My process of applying paint to surfaces that differ in absorbency is exhilarating yet physically demanding; often with unpredictable, yet unique results.

While influenced by a number of innovative landscape artists such as Portia Hein, Anselm Keifer, Helen Frankenthaler and Yun-Fei Ji, I also have an affinity for such early pre-modern landscape masters as William Turner, James Whistler and Thomas Cole. Literary giants: John Keats, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson have also served as inspirations to my concept of landscape painting.