ABSTRACTED CONIFER

What parts of another living thing do we really care about? What makes a conifer? The needles, the bark, the beginnings of a pine cone. There are certain aspects of a species that we remember and connect to first. Conifers define the tree line, they are the last stand to touch the sky with roots in a relatively the rocky earth on the mountainside.

 AFRICAN MILK TREE

Yes, a succulent, but no, not a cactus. The African Milk Tree has its own attitude. Squiggles, waves, points. It stands tall and dances at the same time. Scientific name Euphorbia trigona, this sassy look succulent that we’re used to seeing as a house plant is actually endemic to Central Africa and can grow to a staggering 3 meters in height.

BECAUSE OF TELEVISION

Sometimes you do things because you want to but then it turns out that you didn’t really understand what you were doing in the first place. Your intentions, all of a sudden, are no longer your own and a slow descent begins into a place where you sacrifice little pieces of yourself just to keep moving forward, hoping to stumble upon something that reminds you of who you used to be.

Prior Showings & Distinctions:
- Participant, ALL Abstraction Art Exhibition, Contemporary Art Gallery Online, 2021

 BIG ROCK

My mother’s family came from the ocean. They lived on islands in the middle of deep blue water, built boats, made sails, and crossed the sea to settle on the South Shore by the familiar scent of tides and brine. Although the ocean was never home for me, I did spend every summer of my life as a child visiting that place with my mother, grandmother, sister, and cousin. When they slept in the sun I would wander off to find life clinging to the fine line between the land and the sea. There was a big rock down the beach from our spot. We called it Big Rock. Other people did too. Low tide would leave Big Rock easy to walk to. High tide would embrace it from every side, fill its pools, and keep it from my prying eyes. But, whenever I could, I would climb Big Rock on all fours and peek into every nook and cranny to find whatever treasures scuttered and stuck to its surface

Warm thin water, overlapped waves receding into cool black salty depths, undertow. Man-of-war, purple entangled, hard to escape. Rock. Solid. Cold, wet, slippery, salty, smooth and spiky, barnacles. Come down from there. Be careful. Just a minute. Life. Breathing, pools of yellow red green, orange. Quick movement, slow pulse. Another wave coming in.

BOLIVIANA

I wanted to experiment with new colors and feelings. I got a bit stuck along the way while working on this painting and wasn’t really sure where it was going. But then, this song came on my playlist and everything just clicked. I put it on repeat, the music took over, and the painting just seemed to paint itself.

 COMFORT

Sometimes it takes a world of darkness to make us feel warm and cozy. We’ll sequester ourselves in the tiniest thought, sometimes an inkling of hope or a lie, maybe a memory. We run into that tiny thought and wrap it up around ourselves, take comfort inside it, and hide from the outside world.

 DIRT

One of the things we never think about is what lies right below our feet — dirt. The word itself even has connotation of being useless, ugly, or unwanted. We give it nicer names like soil when want to use it for growing things. But, in reality it’s all just that — dirt. Dirt is one of the most important things on the planet. It has a lot organic matter and serves as the canvas on which life is painted, much like water does. Take a close look at any dirt and it’ll be full of useful nutrients, microorganisms, and fungi.

 EONS

Cliffs and rock faces expose the places we stand as not just physical locations but temporal ones as well. Rock is something we understand physically as solid, steadfast, reliable, unmoving, hard, lifeless, and cold. That is just a result of our laziness and unwillingness to understand rock on its own timeline. Sedimentary rocks, formed over millennia at the bottom of oceans and forests, store the ghosts of another time, another world that was not our own. By looking into the layers, shapes, and textures of exposed rock faces, we can take a glimpse into not only the history of our planet but also learn the secrets of the past.

Prior Showings & Distinctions:
- Finalist, Landscapes Online Art Show, Grey Cube Gallery, 2021

 EPIPHYTE

If you walk through the jungle, go slowly. Take your eyes off the path. Look around you. Look up. Suspended in the air on the branch of a tree begins another layer of life — roots in the air, petals in the sky, epiphytic orchids hidden up high.

EXTINCTION

Drawing or painting images of nature used to feel like a tribute to something beautiful but now it feels like record keeping — a perfunctory effort to keep things on the books; a way to create the dinosaurs of tomorrow. Soon enough we’ll start our children’s bedtimes stories with “Once upon a time elephants walked the earth...” We may as well paint nature’s beings as we treat them. Erasable.

 FÜR PAPI

Life is like walking and not being able to stop. Each step, you have to catch yourself to keep going even if you want to stop or go slower. There’s no choice involved. You have to leave other people behind. Some of them will hold you back, some of them will cheer you on, but all of them you will leave behind.

Prior Showings & Distinctions:
- Participant, ALL Abstraction Art Exhibition, Contemporary Art Gallery Online, 2021

 HARP SEAL

When we think of the arctic, we see white ice in our mind’s eye. A polar bear hunting for a seal. But there is much more below that white surface. It refracts the light in curves and twists, it nurtures the bellies of krill and keeps harp seals hidden from danger. From above it’s flat, bleek, and barren but from below it’s a colorful place of safety and comfort.

 HIPPOPOTAMUS

Hippopotami (hippopotamus amphibius) play an integral role in sub-saharan ecosystems. They live both in still and moving bodies of water ranging from rivers to lakes and swamps. They spend the day resting and cooling off in groups in the water and then move onto the land at night to graze. As they eat the low-lying grasses, fallen fruit, and other nearby flora, they absorb nitrogen and phosphorous into their bodies. Those nutrients are then later transferred into the water as they relieve themselves. This is why the hippo is called a “cross-boundary species”, because it lives in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats but also links them through eutrophication. Without the hippo, aquatic ecosystems would suffer and so would, in turn, the other species that depend on them. For this reason, hippos should viewed with reverence. They are a key, integral species and one of the most important eco-architects on the African continent.

 HONEYBEE

What would be like to fly into a flower? Hundreds of tiny petals on a dandelion meet the fuzzy pollen filled hairs of a honeybee. A colorful crash of hues yellow in jubilee.

 HORIZON

The demarcation between the water and the sky, the edge of the earth, a line that steadies the sea, endless possibilities just out of sight; we look to the horizon and think of many things but we are really just squinting at the curve of the earth, fooled by the slightest of angles.

JANUARY BIRCH

I’ve always had mixed feelings about birch trees. We’ve had a love-hate relationship since I was a kid. Growing up with endless allergies, the birch was the primary reason I couldn’t play outside in the summer. But, any time I had the opportunity it was the first tree I would look for. Pines are sticky, maples are no fun unless it's fall, and oaks are only good for their acorns. But birches are a treasure trove any time of year. The birch’s bark peels back as the tree grows and thickens. The paper is soft and flexible, fun to play with, and can be anything a child imagines — paper, currency, a naturalist accessory. No matter how much I still have a bit of a tiff with them, I can’t help but admit that birch trees are among the most memorable and impressive of stands in the forest. Like a spirit you knew from a more primal time — white like a ghost with eyes up and down, waiting, swaying, and watching over the forest.

 JELLYFISH

Phantasmal, poisonous pests. The lowest point of your day at the beach. Among the lowest forms of life. There are many reasons people disapprove of jellyfish. But that is just how we see them. Jellyfish are resilient, fanciful, quirky, and ubiquitous. They come in all shapes and sizes and were among the first to conquer every corner of the oceans. They metamorphose and live longer than you and I. Some are even immortal and could live forever without the need to think or be troubled by choice.

 MAY BIRCH

I’ve always had mixed feelings about birch trees. We’ve had a love-hate relationship since I was a kid. Growing up with endless allergies, the birch was the primary reason I couldn’t play outside in the summer. But, any time I had the opportunity it was the first tree I would look for. Pines are sticky, maples are no fun unless it's fall, and oaks are only good for their acorns. But birches are a treasure trove any time of year. The birch’s bark peels back as the tree grows and thickens. The paper is soft and flexible, fun to play with, and can be anything a child imagines — paper, currency, a naturalist accessory. No matter how much I still have a bit of a tiff with them, I can’t help but admit that birch trees are among the most memorable and impressive of stands in the forest. Like a spirit you knew from a more primal time — white like a ghost with eyes up and down, waiting, swaying, and watching over the forest.

 NAZARÉ

Where the ocean meets the land in a perpendicular clash of cliff and crashing waves. A small town at the edge of the north Atlantic, a forgotten place named after somewhere else, but once a year the holy mecca of fanatic wave chasers.

Prior Showings & Distinctions:
- Participant, ALL Abstraction Art Exhibition, Contemporary Art Gallery Online, 2021

 NEW GROWTH

One seed among thousands from one flower among hundreds floats the air and chances upon a fortunate fertile piece of earth. How lucky? How rare? Pollination, germination, a struggle upwards towards the sun, a successful new beginning born of such little probably is a treasure like no other.

Prior Showings & Distinctions:
- Participant, ALL Abstraction Art Exhibition, Contemporary Art Gallery Online, 2021

 NO FUCKS PRICKLY PEAR (2)

There’s something about cacti that sets them apart from other plants. With their slow, no-cares approach to growing up, their unapologetically bold and brash appearance, the cactus is just on another level. 

 NO FUCKS PRICKLY PEAR IN BLOOM (1)

There’s something about cacti that sets them apart from other plants. With their slow, no-cares approach to growing up, their unapologetically bold and brash appearance, the cactus is just on another level.

NO FUCKS PRICKLY PEAR IN BLOOM (2)

There’s something about cacti that sets them apart from other plants. With their slow, no-cares approach to growing up, their unapologetically bold and brash appearance, the cactus is just on another level.

OCTOPUS

Octopuses are the most cognitively advanced invertebrates on the planet. They have short and long term memories, learn through play, and can think and act independently with their tentacles as they taste everything they touch. To an octopus, what would it feel like to move forward while thinking with every limb in every direction? What textures and colors, flavors, would it meet as it moves across the ocean floor?

 ORANG UTAN

Towering trees. Home. A jungle gym of vines and branches. Orang utan means person of the forest. What would it be like to be a person of the forest? Enveloped in a suspended sea of green until some day, unforeseen though that thick verdant canopy, it could all come crashing down in flames, a bullet to the side, Eden turned to Hades at the hands of your brother.

PANDA

What does a Panda see in the forest? Or rather, what is it looking for? Would it be a dense place? Bright or dark? Warm or cold? Would it feel like a forest of grass? Or a wooded field? Thick undergrowth on a mountainside.

 QUARANTINE (1)

COVID-19 sucks. We’re all stuck and going stir-crazy.

QUARTER STUDY

 At this point of working with acrylics, I was starting to get into the idea of pushing the paint across a canvas in a certain way because it felt good to move that way with my hands — hence the more sweeping, scraping, sliding, rotating etc. I didn’t have any large canvases and accidentally ordered too many small ones. So, I tried painting one concept across multiple canvases. It was a helpful way to learn more about placement, balance, and continuity. 

 SANSEVIERIA

The one plant I can keep alive — or the one plant that seems to stay alive, rather — in my home is the sansevieria. I never intended on painting one for this. It just worked out that way. I started with a yellow gesso base, threw some different blues and yellows on it, but then mixed them till they turned a solid light green because I didn’t like them. I kept scraping and pushing and quite enjoyed that feeling. So, I took more greens and scraped a bit more. It looked like the leaves of a sansevieria, so that’s what it became. It was like discovering a painting that was already there.

 SEOUL

Memory, space. The places we go and relate to are never stored accurately in our minds. We collect them through senses, process them through experiences, then catalog them in a reflex-like memory as feelings and hunches. Seoul, for me, is an amalgamation of those things. Spaces and places larger than they were or should be, overlapping, jagged, growing, and flowing, imprinted somewhere in the mind’s eye.

SNACKFOOD

 Everything you eat comes from somewhere. Eat too much of it and that somewhere becomes nowhere. Palm oil. Orang utans shot in the head. Receding rainforest. All in your snackfood.

 SOCIAL DISTANCE (1)

COVID19 sucks. It's like being stuck in Limbo, neither here nor there. Serendipity and coincidence have been deleted and replaced with planned, intentional separation, an orthodoxy of isolation.

SOCIAL DISTANCE (2)

COVID19 sucks. It's like being stuck in Limbo, neither here nor there. Serendipity and coincidence have been deleted and replaced with planned, intentional separation, an orthodoxy of isolation.

 STUCK

I hate this painting — not because of the way it looks but because of the way I felt when I painted it. I guess you could say it turned out well because it still portrays that feeling for me, I still feel that way every time I look at it. Everyone goes through that feeling sometimes — that unexpected, uninvited moment of feeling indefinitely stuck or trapped.

 TOUCAN

Every flying bird has its tree. Playful, quirky, hanging out up high. This branch, that branch, here and there, bouncing back and forth, there’s no need for commitments or responsibilities for the toucan.

WHALE (1)

 How do whales interpret comfort? What does “together” mean to a whale? Whales may seem lonely to us in what we perceive as the vastness of the ocean. But, some whales can whisper tens of thousands of kilometers. To a whale, being “with” someone has a whole different meaning.

 WHALE (2)

We most often see whales breaking the surface. We recognize their backs, blowholes, and tails. With more underwater photography available online, we also see them close up — their eyes and profiles. But whales evolved to do primarily one thing, dive. There’s a moment when a whale will choose to plunge into the depths of the ocean. Its physiology changes to adapt to the pressure and the darkness. That moment of descent, the dive, is an undeniably central part of a whale’s life.

WHALE (3)

 How do whales feel the ocean? A place made up of endless circular, spinning layers of currents, temperatures, and depths. Whales don’t live on a two dimensional plane as we do with only forward, backward, right, and left. Whales live in the up and down. They weave through those three dimensions and engage with all those layers of the ocean much like a bird rides swells of air through the sky.

Prior Showings & Distinctions:
- Finalist, Water Art Show, Grey Cube Gallery, 2021
- Finalist, Animals Art Exhibition, Art Room Gallery, 2021

WINHALL

 Thinking of where I grew up in the mountains of Vermont, a town called Winhall.

Winding roads, twist and turn, around the bend more snow.
Mountainside, gravel, and dirt, farther up and around we go. 
Thicket in a field, grove in a glen, up the mountain and around again up, 
and up and up, a barn, a cow, through a forest and 
now here 
above it all, home we are,
nestled between the trees and the sky.

Prior Showings & Distinctions:
- Participant, ALL Abstraction Art Exhibition, Contemporary Art Gallery Online, 2021