Light. Shadow. Dreams.
Early stories of myth and cosmology were a stark shaft of light through the darkness of a cold, primordial existence: Their warming, life-affirming messages told us that we are not alone. These ideas drive my painting. My vision, built on mythological and biblical narrative, is painted in light-centric traditions shaped by Caravaggio, Ribera, Velazquez, and Zurburan. I strive for a renewal of these sensibilities.
Working with light in a painting, making paintings that speak largely of illumination, is a spiritual endeavor. Light in a painting represents a divine observer, the higher self, the best the human condition can offer. It is thick, colorful, textured, luminous, and replete with information.
The shadow is equally compelling. The shadow: dark, transparent, absent of information and color, a void. It is the Jungian shadow-self, the outcast persona lurking in our subconscious; it is the darkness of human experience. Commitment to the use of light and shadow in this way ultimately suggests that in the light we are not alone, while in the shadow perhaps we are.
Yet it is from the shadows that we dream. When I paint and think about paintings, I think about dreams, and what it feels like to be in a dream; the painting is felt through this lens. Both are a place where we surrender to a strange mode of existence made up of our hopes and fears, curiosities, pain, and love. The subjects we find there are pieces of our own psyche; from them we learn to see others in ourselves, and ourselves in others.
