Artist Statement

Much of my current work is inspired by six months spent in Brazil on a Fulbright Fellowship, where my senses were overtaken by the lush plant life that flourishes in its tropical clime. I take natrural forms and I riff on them. I saturate the paintings with color, energy, pattern and light. The jewel-like quality, and shimmering details link, for me, the micro and the macro - mosaics, brocades and the cosmos combined. The complex layered space, concave and convex forms, decoration, transparency, and shape-shifting playfulness all conspire to seduce - the way nature seduces in order to propagate itself. I paint about the irrepressible life force we encounter in nature where the physical, sensual, spiritual, cerebral, and erotic coexist in a nexus. I used to speculate that my love of pattern and repetition found its roots in my Asian sensibility. Now I believe that on a very basic level, the human and possibly all living organisms nervous system respond organically to patternmaking.

Traditionally the Chinese have used nature in art, both still life and landscape, to refer to the recurring, ever-renewing cycles of the seasons. To them nature seemed eternal. At the dawn of the 21st century we are less sanguine on this point. Within this historical context, I find a close and imaginative examination of nature, which necessarily leads to a renewed sense of reverence for its miraculous complexity, a humbling but inspiring pursuit.