Career Narrative

I was born in Los Angeles, California in 1962.  My early years were informed by growing up in the budding art world of Southern California during the 1970’s.  I attended California Institute of the Arts beginning in 1979.  I studied with John Baldessari, Douglas Huebler and Michael Asher.   My first year, I focused mainly on film, video and performance art.  During my second year, my focus shifted to painting where it has remained for the last thirty years. I moved to New York in 1981 to work as a studio assistant for the painter Pat Steir.

In 1982, I began a new series of black and white paintings that treaded a fine line between abstraction and representation.  Even though these paintings were very gestural, they suggested microscopic phenomenon galactic phenomenon as well ancient fragments of stone. In 1986, I was in my first group show in New York at Artist Space, entitled “Selections” curated by Valerie Smith.   In 1987, I had my first solo show, at Annina Nosei Gallery in New York.  In the summer of 1987, I traveled to Francavilla Al Mare, Italy to participate in an exhibition entitled “Nuovi territori dell’ arte” curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.  I won the “Primi Michetti” prize for my painting “Long Night” which went into the collection of the Fondazione Michetti.  I used some of the prize money to continue traveling around Italy, studying as much historical painting as I could.  When I returned to New York, I used the remaining prize money to begin a new series of work in which I silk screened images onto the already painted surfaces of the canvases.  In 1988, I was included in a museum exhibition entitled “Skeptical Belief(s)” which traveled from the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago to the Newport Harbor Art Museum.  The exhibition showcased over fifty artists who at one time had attended California Institute of the Arts.

From 1988 onward, I continued working on the body of work that combined painting and silk-screened images retrieved from the New York Science Times. The paintings once again suggested galactic and microscopic phenomenon and the silk-screened images were words and diagrams that conflated and challenged the notion of what the viewer was seeing.  I continued working on these paintings until 1991.  They were exhibited in many group shows in New York and Los Angeles.  In 1992, I began a new series of paintings made with powdered pigments mixed into wet acrylics.  These paintings were very suggestive of primordial landscapes and ancient growth forms.  Once again these paintings treaded a fine line between representation and abstraction.  In 1995, I did my first of three solo exhibitions with Leonora Vega Gallery in New York.  I also exhibited these paintings in 1997 with Kantor Gallery in Los Angeles as well as in many group exhibitions.

In 2000, I moved back to Los Angeles from New York.  In 2002 the direction of my paintings shifted in response to my new environment.  Once again these paintings straddled a line between abstraction and pictorialism but now they referenced the horizon.  In 2003, I started shaping my canvases to be both convex and concave so that the reflected and refracted light.  In these paintings I was using pearlescent and interference acrylic paint, which combined with the curved surfaces, would cause the colors to shift and the highlights to change as the viewer interacted with the paintings.  I have continued to evolve this body of work to this present day.  The paintings have ranged from monochromatic to varied and complex color palettes.  The work has also shifted back and forth between being very minimal to being extremely complex and layered.  The paintings have mostly been long and horizontal in format, with references and allusions to landscape and elemental forms though at the same time remaining resolutely abstract.

Since 2002, I have had three solo shows with Patricia Faure Gallery in Los Angeles and one solo show with William Turner Gallery in Los Angeles.  I have exhibited the work extensively in California as well as in New York, Miami, and Houston, Texas.  I have exhibited the work internationally in Switzerland, Italy and Norway.  In 2004, the Fredrick R. Weisman Foundation purchased four paintings and has purchased five more since that time.  In 2009, the Laguna Art Museum exhibited their recently acquired painting in their exhibition “Collecting California”.  In 2011, I had an exhibition with the Art 1307 Foundation in Naples, Italy.  The work has been reviewed and featured in Art in America, Art News, Art LTD, LA Times, Tema Celeste, and many other publications.

My objective is to continuing evolving and expanding new directions for my particular approach to painting.  I will be exploring new materials such as: metals, vacuuformed plastics, and highly developed paint materials while maintaining the integrity of abstract painting.  With the help of a Guggenheim Fellowship, I can continue the evolution of my painted surfaces and explore new multi-curved custom made forms.