SMALL WORLD
I have always avoided including any political undertones in my work because, in principle, I aim to entertain the viewer whoever they are.
My opinion on things should not be part of the equation.
This show may diverge from that a little.
At this point in history, Disney’s “Small World” ride could be construed as a divisive threat to US foreign policy by our current leadership.
That is a ridiculous state of affairs that I try address, hopefully subtly, in this body of work

Faces and figures inhabit all of my paintings. When I try to stray from this subject, there's something I can’t resist which calls me back. The question of what it means to be human haunts me and forces its way into my work. I want to portray people in order to show their unique individual presence and to allude to the underlying mystery of what it means to be human. I feel a tension when I paint between the desire to capture the subject’s humanness and at the same time wrestle with the painting process itself, for a good painting is much more than a literal representation of its subject. In an abstract painting one might see what appears to be a circle and a rectangle and the spacial relationship between these two forms, but in my work I might attempt to hide a similar abstraction in plain sight within the form of a seated woman with a large hat. Once a painting is begun I’m soon lost in the actual process of discovering the best interplay of color, line, volume, value and other visual challenges that must be dealt with before the painting begins to move towards a resolution. There is always the struggle with the craft of the art. In the end, I’m striving for a balance between a composition that includes a human subject that is compelling and a paint surface that engages the viewer.