As a child, I was given a book that included pictures of prehistoric burial sites where the bodies of the dead were anointed with oils and oxides and surrounded by amulets and animal bones.  A painted image in the book depicted a Paleolithic artist creating Venus figures.  Staring at this picture, I envied what I imagined to be the easy communion of that artist with the physical and spiritual world around him, unmediated by all that separates me in my contemporary life from a more direct experience of existence.

Today, I make paintings on canvas and paper using oil bars and paint, dry pigments and washes, brushes and rags.  Often, I invent processes that require touching the surface of the painting with my hands.  As I work, I develop surfaces that contrast repetitive, obsessive, time-consuming procedures with abrupt, accidental moments. The imagery that develops often shifts back and forth between the figurative and abstraction.  Repetitive actions seduce my mind below the surface of thought, where unpremeditated gestures can bring something tangible and meaningful from behind the screen of consciousness out onto the canvas.  Those rare moments in life when the brain scrambles to decode visual input that is not readily interpreted are exciting to me, and I look for ways to reproduce that experience as I work.