Artist Statement:

I do not remember a time in my life when I didn’t know I would be an artist. From childhood sketches of Civil War battle scenes to experimental canvases filled with symbolic layers, painting has always been the lens through which I explore and make sense of the world.

My process is intuitive and exploratory- each painting a journey of action, reflection, and response. There is no formula, only a willingness to experiment, to fail, and to wrestle meaning from chaos. Often, it’s in the friction- the tug-of-war between intention and uncertainty- that the real breakthroughs occur. Occasionally a painting emerges fluidly and effortlessly, but it’s the hard-won pieces I love the most.

My work unfolds in two distinct, yet connected bodies. One is abstract and non-objective, driven by internal landscapes- memories, emotion, lineage, and the layered chaos of human experience. The other is rooted in the external world: my lifelong relationship with rivers, forests, and mountains.

Where most landscape painters recreate the landscapes they love, I paint so the viewers feel they are in a scene. My abstract expressionist background informs my abstracted landscapes. I challenge myself to recreate the experience of standing in a stream or holding a trout: rather than painting an image of the place, I seek to paint a moment. My goal is to capture the living moment of an area: the way light moves, how the wind blows through trees, how the water rushes downstream, bouncing over and colliding with rocks. My abstract landscape paintings convey the exciting and sacred act of connecting with the natural world.