Artist’s Statement

I mainly paint in an American Realist Style which is a natural reflection of my background and training. I was inspired at an early age by Edward Hopper and have sought to paint in a style reminiscent of his school of art. But, as time goes by every artist tends to move in his own direction and begins to move away from his early inspirations and motivations as his work matures. “Curb Service”, almost 19 years in creation is my tribute to Edward Hopper, a very personal response to Hopper’s “Night Hawks”. “Curb Service” and “Night Hawks” are the same size canvas and each portrays that era’s late night spot for people contemporary to each artist’s period of time. The completion of “Curb Service” marks the point in which this artist moves forward in a radically new, unique direction.

My subject matter has revolved around urban scenes and vintage vehicles in some state of distress, but this has been my fascination and nothing is etched in stone! The scenes I paint involve remnants, historic relics, some gritty, some shabby but all with character and a “once great now forgotten” feel about them. The natural process of aging and decay produces surfaces with character and muted coloration as brilliance and polish give way to imperfection, softening shades of color and the blending of contrast into complement.

My process involves scanning an image into the computer and manipulating the color, contrast and saturation to get a sense of the image’s possibilities. Sometimes it takes days of playing with an image before I see a painting in it. When I think I have hit the correct color and intensities, I can actually see the image not as a photo, but as a painting! My colors often are not as the camera captured it, but are what I see is required to create the visual mood and imagery that I feel when seeing the object not as it is, but what it could be if it became the singular focus of a piece of artwork. Artists have the capability to take the plain and reconfigure it into visual art in a manner similar to taking a simple children’s song and rearranging it into a full orchestra piece.

At some point in time an artist reaches a sense of maturity regarding his work. He becomes comfortable with his skills and finds himself needing to move to that next level in their career. I currently produce a series of paintings I call “Used Cars”. I love these scenes! While I plan to continue this series, I have just started a new series of works, a radical departure from anything I have ever done before. This new series is a challenge to me as it involves a more cohesive, contemporary monochromatic series of works taken from old family snapshots found in a pair of chests I inherited. While I have not cataloged them yet, they number in excess of a hundred, most taken with old Kodak cameras and mainly cover eras from the 1920’s through the 1950’s. It is truly a treasure trove. More is coming on this new series as the paintings come off the easel and onto the website.