My work is rooted in a persistent and involuntary need to look beneath the surface—of images, memory and experience itself. I approach painting as a choice and always a necessity. It is how I think, process and how I restore my balance in a world that often feels visually and emotionally saturated, chaotic and overwhelming. I am drawn to the spaces where my perception, intuition and memory are at play, a place where language falls short and painting becomes my only viable form of inquiry.
This impulse I feel, needed definition. I needed words to describe what I feel. My process is deeply connected to what author Wallace J. Nichols describes as Blue Mind—that calm, meditative state we enter in proximity to water. The ocean, for me, is not just inspiration. Being by the water creates a neurological and emotional baseline for me. When I paint, I search for and recreate that state. Slowing my mind, regulating my body to allow something intuitive to take over. Without making art, I lose access to a critical form of internal equilibrium. It is mighty handy to have, I might say.
In the studio, I resist predetermined outcomes. Each painting develops as a process of discovery, which is both challenging and liberating—especially as someone who has long suffered with perfectionism. I’ve had to learn how to let go of control and trust in myself. Mistakes are not my failures but are directional shifts and often fortunate accidents. Through layered color fields, shifting textures and deliberate mark-making, I translate the chaos of daily life into something that feels both grounded and fluid.
Nature, especially oceans and gardens, architecture and elements of decay also inform my art. Inspire by the history and stories they represent, I absorb and reinterpret them. The flow of water, the rhythm of natural systems, shapes and textures, a lot of movement— all of this find its way into my abstractions. I feel an increasing urgency around ocean preservation and I am especially influenced by ocean conservancy after witnessing the decline of the coral reefs from climate change and powerful hurricanes in the British Virgin Islands. My paintings are rooted in a desire to reconnect other people’s memories to place when they view my work. Reminders of being at the shore and of the emotional and sensory importance these environments for all of us, and the importance to our global ecosystem.
Within my work, abstraction and representation coexist. Forms emerge, suggest things and sometimes become more of what I see, offering moments of recognition without really attaching any meaning. I want viewers to enter the work through their own perceptions, to find something personal within it. When someone tells me what they see, it expands the life of the painting beyond my own experience. That exchange really matters to me and I love hearing people’s responses.
Ultimately, making art is how I make sense of the world and how I stay connected to it. It is a form of therapy, a form of inquiry and a message of preservation all at once. My hope is that the work carries a sense of calm, curiosity and openness into the spaces it inhabits bringing visual interest, but a subtle emotional resonance to those who live with it.
