“By adopting a “reverse painting” technique, the light in my forests is imbued with substance instead of merely being a backdrop , or solely an illuminator of the “subject”.  First, I paint the immediate foreground, then I progress through mid-ground and finally onto the distant pure light bursting through leaves and branches as the last brushstrokes are applied.  One of the effects of the last touches being thick dabs of colour, is that they distort the edges of leaves and branches as if the light has physically muscled its way onto the foreground, scuffing off colour as it passes through the dense growth of the forest.”

“I like the passion of oil paint, the surface, the thick brushstrokes loaded with pigment, the flamboyant interaction of colour, and I like it all to coalesce into an identifiable whole allowing the viewer to inhabit both journey and destination with barely a fractional alteration in perception.”

“My paintings are a constant struggle to balance the energy of chaos with the structure of order.  From a distance the forest appears physically realistic and there seems surely to be a path appearing as we draw close, yet the nearer we get , the more passionate the abstraction of colour and the more unrecognizable the forms which once were foliage, until gradually the abstraction and chaos restore the primal swirl of pure existence.”

“The origins of the plein air painting Light Through the Trees series began in 2002 as I witnessed the Rodeo and Chedeski fires in Arizona merging and threatening my campsite.  The forest’s stoic acceptance of careless destruction impressed me at that time and several years later became a model for me in 2005 after my art and gallery were destroyed in the historic Globe Pioneer Hotel fire.  I lost over 1000 paintings and drawings overnight.  Since then, I have felt an affinity with trees because they are at the mercy of us all to provide a safe and nurturing environment for their continued existence.  My hope is that after seemingly total destruction, the forest and I will renew ourselves through creativity.”