Statement

In The Bush
In The Bush, oil on panel, 36 x 36 inches, 2020

The Serengeti is a remarkable experience of a life cycle on full display…birth, aging, illness and death. Nothing is hidden for long. Wildlife must continually negotiate the threat of being eaten or dying from not eating. I was fortunate to take my first African safari in 2008 and returned home profoundly changed. Imagine being in a jeep surrounded by endless herds of wildebeest and zebra in search of green grass. I couldn’t stop thinking about this experience and returning to the figure as my subject matter no longer felt meaningful. I was obsessed and luckily had hours of video to relive this experience. I immersed myself watching and hearing wildlife once again as if for the first time…one clip captured my imagination  – a rolling Zebra.

Perhaps it was because I drew horses incessantly as a child or that I owned a horse in my teenage years. I felt compelled to draw the Zebra in its full range of behavior from rolling in a dust bath to running in a herd until I filled a 25′ x 12′ studio wall, twice. This was a year of letting images wash over me with no purpose in mind except to understand the form, space and movement. That was twelve years ago and I’ve learned much from the process…painting the same subject over and over again creates familiarity and shrinks the space between seeing and understanding. It has freed my form and color from naturalism and realism. Yet, nothing is routine. I’ve engaged in this process hundreds of times with no blueprint…only a blank canvas and the unknown …and a desire to access an internal world where imagination and creativity reside…I have no guarantees just a wish to open myself up to endless interpretations of a world I believe to be true.