Statement
It is hard to think of myself as a landscape painter. Landscape painting has such a rich tradition, that to align myself, in title, so closely to the past I would have to admit to the impossibility of doing anything interesting or new, maybe just beautiful. But for me, landscape has been the setting not the subject, or is it the other way around? It is the place where something happens and through the painter’s hand, the place where anything is possible. I began merging architecture with nature because I wanted to explore my reactions to the housing boom I experienced living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in the early 2000’s. I began this process by addressing the constant feeling of transition brought on by the spectacle of new structures being built daily. My work sought to capture the awkward beauty of the interim, where construction ephemera, in bright colors, appeared as architectural intent and not just as support structures. I sought to elevate the status of fluorescent orange netting and scaffolding covered buildings. Over time these elements became symbols or a type of vocabulary. I became interested in introducing them along with their more permanent architectural counterparts into unaccustomed settings. In the past few years, this convergence has been increasingly exaggerated. Nature has been playing a more significant role in my compositions. It is no longer just a passive backdrop for architectural intrusions. Nature has become more active, taking on it’s own structural significance. Its role has been elevated, as it should be.
