I am an easel painter. My work turns on a profound respect and regard for the past, recontextualizing details from late-medieval painting and design. I feel no impulse toward grandiosity or technical experimentation; rather, the endless possibilities inherent in “colored muds in a sticky substance” are sufficient. The attainment of beauty—of concinnity—is my primary objective. I realize this view is not universally shared; nevertheless, I maintain that beauty qua beauty is not superficial: it has consequence, and we need it as an antidote to the glib, assaultive ugliness surrounding us.
I work slowly, paying fastidious attention to facture and finish. Paintings completed in the last decade demonstrate my formal preoccupation with illusionism and transparency, and their perceived convergence with the inherent artificiality of the painted surface. I will continue to work in this vein, making paintings that have formal affinities but are not conceived as being thematically connected.
