Statement + Bio

In my current urban landscape paintings on paper, I remove all man-made objects to illustrate how ecosystems, and our experience of nature, are mediated by the built environment. I am arguing that the environmental crisis is due, in large part, to our individual, socio-cultural, and capitalist disconnection from nature - and we can see this disconnection played out in how we divide and disrupt land, water and sky.

After decades of working primarily in commercially-produced watercolor, I now use only natural pigments made from foraged plants, soils, rocks and other natural materials - from my own backyard, public lands and roadsides - so that my own process of making is part of the effort of reconnection. These pigments, like the landscapes they dipict, are fugitive.

The images in my current work are sourced from my own photographs of the urban and suburban landscapes I traverse during my daily life in Los Angeles and travels elesewhere. These are the obstructed ways I see nature - and many of us see nature - every day.

Past series were based on the 19th century Hudson River School, manifest destiny, Buddhist parables, and the irony of contemporary American life. These were all avenues for presenting cautionary tales about how our past and present actions are predicting a frangible future.

I was born in Darby, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. I received my BFA from Tyler School of Art (Temple University); MFA from Indiana University, Bloomington, both in painting.

My work is in the permanent collections of the Hilliard Art Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Rollins Museum of Art, as well as notable private collections. I have received residency fellowships from the Lenz Foundation, Caldera, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Americans for the Arts. 

I currently live in Los Angeles with my wife, Amber, a philosophy professor, and our dog, Nera.