My dimensional paintings are built out of pieces, beads, dollops, and pools of paint that maintain their integrity as they are subsumed into a larger environment. The relationship between the act of painting and each material painting is important. Every physical layer of paint represents a direct and momentary point of contact. These fleeting focused moments accumulate and over the course of weeks or months evolve into a palpable, chromatic environment.

The mini-geographies that I construct out of paint relate to my personal and ancestral connection to the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. My paintings are abstract, animated landscapes that act as intimate meditations on the sublime in nature and in human life. The underlying meaning of my work is partly inspired by experiences of the sublime in the Northwest’s islands (particularly San Juan Island, where my family settled six generations ago), inland seas, rivers and mountains.

The environments in my paintings reflect not only a reverence for nature, but also anxiety about one’s place in and effect on the world. The wonder and awe my natural surroundings inspire is constantly counter-balanced with reminders of the fragility and contingency of one’s own life and, as is increasingly evident, that of the environment itself.