Bio

I have been a painter all my life. I’ve maintained a studio practice, and have shown regularly at galleries in NYC and Vermont, and many group shows in the US and internationally. I studied at Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute and did my masters at Brooklyn College. While at Pratt, I met James Gahagan who was a long time student and studio assistant to Hans Hofmann. Jim introduced me to the teachings of Hofmann, as well as other Hofmann students, and was my mentor and friend for over thirty years. In 1985, I became part of the administration at the Vermont Studio Center. Over the last thirty years, I have had the opportunity to meet and work with amazing artists from every corner of the world.

Artist’s Statement

In painting as in reality the appearance of space is two dimensional and the experience is multidimensional. In painting we call this phenomenon plasticity. In the dynamics of this spatial experience lies the expressive value of my painting. It reflects my deepest feelings and touches on every experience. I have found in my painting the more I push to explore these feelings the closer I come to capturing a more expressive interpretation of the visual experience. Abstraction frees the spirit to allow for the deepest exploration of this expressive experience.

Visual plasticity is the corner stone of the of the Modernist Art movement. It represents the phenomenon in which three- dimensionality is expressed on a two-dimensional surface (painting). In painting as in all two-dimensional art forms, we try to create the appearance of three dimensionality on a two dimensional surface. We call this surface the picture plane. The picture plane has natural properties by which it operates and we use these to recreate the experience of visual perception. By using overlapping and dynamic distribution of flat planes along with color we can create a sense of volume and space. We call this plastic space. it is always changing as the eye moves across the picture plane. Every plastic activation of the picture surface creates a two dimensional motion and at the same time, a three dimensional suggested motion in the sense of push and pull (that is the sense of in and out of depth) The interplay of this dual motion produces a combined two and three dimensional rhythm. 

I start my paintings by placing areas of colors on the canvas; these colors react to one another in relationship that have a specific sense of volume and space. The space I create in this way has a plastic nature; it is experienced as having movement and depth while maintaining a two dimensional integrity . The internal response I have to this dynamic spatial form as it begins to unfold dictates the compositional results. In the end the painting takes on a sense of form that evokes in us a feeling not unlike one we experience when looking at a beautiful landscape in nature. Although these paintings are abstractions, they are true to the experience of visual perception. And, it is this that allows us to experience them as being real.