Personal Reflections on my Early Watercolors
My commitment to working as an artist is rooted in a desire to not only understand the world around me but to understand myself. My early years, spent in a variety of spiritual pursuits, instilled in me a meditative awareness of the deeper meaning found below the surface of life. In the still-life genre I found an artistic practice which allowed me to express this understanding.
My early watercolors were sensual in nature and simple in presentation. My love for the magnificent light of California suffused this early work with a startling brilliance. My love of flowers and an abiding connection to the primal nature of color combined to create large scale, passionately lyrical work. This work was created during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic here in San Francisco, when my continued existence was in doubt. By celebrating this sensual and fragile beauty, I was also acknowledging its impermanence.
I came to see the still-life as a shrine that honored the tangible world. I found it necessary to explore the slippery divide between perception and illusion, which led to the creation of almost magical realist work where space, time and dimension are purely a product of the imagination. I started to use compositional devices such as changing the viewpoint to flatten the surface, altering the depth of field, removing perspective and using pattern to create abstraction. This involved an intoxicating combination of both the organic and the geometric, and revealed compositions of surprising complexity and depth.
As I look back at my work, I see a restless need to explore both my outer and inner worlds and I continue to create paintings that pay tribute to the vivid and mysterious reality that surrounds us.
Watercolor on paper60 x 40 inches2013Catalog ID: 201311Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 20 inches2014Catalog ID: 201412Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper44 x 44 inches2014Catalog ID: 201414Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper60 x 40 inches2004Catalog ID: 200414Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 26 inches2014Catalog ID: 201410Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper49 x 37 Framed inches2003Catalog ID: 200318Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 20 inches2014Catalog ID: 201408Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 26 inches2014Catalog ID: 201406Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 26 inches2014Catalog ID: 201407Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper44 x 35 inches2013Catalog ID: 201316Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper44 x 35 inches2014Catalog ID: 201411Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 25 inches2013Catalog ID: 201315Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper19.75 x 19.75 inches2012Catalog ID: 201223Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 26 inches2014Catalog ID: 201413Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 26 inches2014Catalog ID: 201405Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper30 x 22 inches2003Catalog ID: 200316Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41 x 29 inches2003Catalog ID: 200323Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 framed inches2006Catalog ID: 200657Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2007Catalog ID: 200702Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2006Catalog ID: 200658Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2007Catalog ID: 200734Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper18 x 18 inches2008Catalog ID: 200845Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2007Catalog ID: 200731Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2014Catalog ID: 201409Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2008Catalog ID: 200847Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2008Catalog ID: 200842Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper19 x 19 inches2008Catalog ID: 200844Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5X29.5 inches2012Catalog ID: 201223Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper14.5 x 10.5 inches2008Catalog ID: 200849Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper26 x 26 inches2014Catalog ID: 201415Download ⇩
Watercolor on pper44x35 inches2013Catalog ID: 201341Download ⇩
Watercolor on pper25x40 inches2013Catalog ID: 201338Download ⇩
This is the description22x22 inches2009Catalog ID: 200924Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5x41 inches1991Catalog ID: 199112Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41x60 inches1992Catalog ID: 199227aDownload ⇩
Watercolor on paper41x60 inches1992Catalog ID: 199227bDownload ⇩
Watercolor on paper45x96 inches1992Catalog ID: 199240Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper60x40 inches1993Catalog ID: 199305Download ⇩
Watercolor on pper41x29.5 inches1993Catalog ID: 199326Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41x29.5 inches1993Catalog ID: 199344Download ⇩
Ever since creating abstract collages in 2011 as a response to the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactor caused by a massive earthquake, I have been fascinated with the creation of visual abstract languages. I explored color and shape in both the “Space/Time” and “Meditations on the Square” monotype series. In my most recent body of work, utilizing mixed media etched wood panels, I focused on how the world around us offers amazing opportunities for exciting visual abstractions representing a deep link between our own microcosm and the magnificence of the cosmos.
This new work started with visual explorations of that most abstract of arts, Jazz. A commission about synesthesia initiated my attempts to use color and form to approximate what I felt from this radical music. This year I started drawing with colored pencil and graphite on various papers, distilling my earlier explorations into a more cohesive vocabulary. The drawing process was essential to this process due to its immediacy and simplicity. I continue down that path, bringing in collage alongside the drawing, eager to see where this will lead.
Watercolor on paper40x40 inches2021Catalog ID: 202116Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper30x22 inches2021Catalog ID: 202115Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper20211244x44 inches2021Catalog ID: 202112Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40x60 inches2021Catalog ID: 202110Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41x29.5 inches2021Catalog ID: 202108Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41x29.5 inches2021Catalog ID: 202107Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper44x44 inches2021Catalog ID: 202106Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41x29.5 inches2021Catalog ID: 202105Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5x41 inches2021Catalog ID: 202103Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41x29.5 inches2021Catalog ID: 202102Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5x41 inches2021Catalog ID: 202104Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5x41 inches2021Catalog ID: 202109Download ⇩
Pastel on paper40x25 inches2021Catalog ID: 202111Download ⇩
Pastel on paper25x40 inches2021Catalog ID: 202113Download ⇩
Pastel on Rives BFK30x22 inches2021Catalog ID: 202114Download ⇩
White chalk on black Rives BFK22x30 inches2022Catalog ID: 202209Download ⇩
Pastel on paper with a green gesso29x12 inches2022Catalog ID: 202210Download ⇩
Pastel on paper with a green gesso29x12 inches2022Catalog ID: 202211Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper26x40 inches2022Catalog ID: 202212Download ⇩
Pastel on Arches hot press watercolor paper with a oxblood gesso26x40 inches2022Catalog ID: 202213Download ⇩
Sepia chalk on tan Rives BFK22x30 inches2024Catalog ID: 202401Download ⇩
Pastel on black Rives BFK22x30 inches2024Catalog ID: 202402Download ⇩
Colored crayon on tan Stonehenge 22x30 inches2025Catalog ID: 202403Download ⇩
This is the description22x30 inches2024Catalog ID: 202404Download ⇩
Graphite and crayon on Rives BFK22x30 inches2024Catalog ID: 202405Download ⇩
This is the description30x42 inches2024Catalog ID: 202406Download ⇩
White chalk on black Rives BFK22x30 inches2024Catalog ID: 202407Download ⇩
This is the description26x40 inches2024Catalog ID: 202408Download ⇩
Collage on wood panel22x30 inches2024Catalog ID: 202409Download ⇩
This is the description30x44 inches2024Catalog ID: 202410Download ⇩
Collage on wood panel36x60 inches2024Catalog ID: 202411Download ⇩
Abstraction # 11
We live in a world where every question can be answered by the click of a mouse, where we can visit ancient monuments from the comfort of our armchair, a world where the mysterious has become obsolete. Religion has been fatally corrupted by power and decadence, knowledge has replaced wisdom, and information has become a product in itself. In this world more is better, excess is stylish, and "reality" is more likely to refer to a television program than a personal experience. This is a world where the ephemeral is glorified over the substantial and where meaning is not just hard to find, but is seen as both irrelevant and quaint.
And so I have asked myself "Where do I find meaning in my life and in my art?". Looking back at my work with skulls and thorns in Rituals and Meditations and earlier where I was using fabrics and flowers, I could see myself searching for meaning. This earlier work was characterized by an intensity and vitality expressed most especially through color and pattern, and while I see now that this very vitality was an expression of meaning in itself, at the time this did not feel enough.
This new work began after taking a year's break from painting, in which I created collages inspired by the Fukushima tsunami, which washed my own creative world clean and allowed me to start afresh. Thru my love of African music, such as hi-life and Afro-Beat I was inspired to express rhythm in color and form, and which in then created the basic compositional structure of this new work. My personal obsessions were distilled into abstract symbols and shapes and these replaced the centrality previously held by representation.
Here I share carnal ceremonies, and fierce, rhythmic visions. There are no answers here, only the delirious delights of mysteries and riddles. These paintings offer my private adventures on the stormy seas of the unknown and the unknowable, stories both ancient and modern, siren songs to lure you into experiencing life in all its beauty and power.
Watercolor on paper60 x 30 inches2013Catalog ID: 201313Download ⇩
Watercolor on pper60x40 inches2013Catalog ID: 201340Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41 x 29.5 inches2013Catalog ID: 201309Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41 x 29.5 inches2013Catalog ID: 201319Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41 x 29.5 inches2013Catalog ID: 201310Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper41 x 29.5 inches2013Catalog ID: 201314Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper60 x 40 inches2014Catalog ID: 201401Download ⇩
Watercolor on pper20x40 inches2013Catalog ID: 201343Download ⇩
This is the description40x20 inches2013Catalog ID: 201342Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper44 x 37 inches2013Catalog ID: 201317Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper20 x 20 inches2013Catalog ID: 201318Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 16 inches2009Catalog ID: 200906Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 22 inches2009Catalog ID: 200907Download ⇩
Watercolor on Paper22 x 16 inches2009Catalog ID: 200902Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper30 x 16 inches2009Catalog ID: 200912Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper16 x 22 inches2009Catalog ID: 200903Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 30 inches2009Catalog ID: 200905Download ⇩
Watercolor on Paper22 x 16 inches2009Catalog ID: 200931Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper16 x 22 inches2009Catalog ID: 200904Download ⇩
Watercolor on Paper20 x 16 inches2009Catalog ID: 200930Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 16 inches2009Catalog ID: 200909Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 22 inches2009Catalog ID: 200911Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 16 inches2009Catalog ID: 200908Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 16 inches2009Catalog ID: 200901Download ⇩
These paintings are visual keys that explore the mystery of beauty. Using ritualistic creative processes that allow me to connect with my inner unconscious reality, I explore some of the paradoxical and magical aspects of life. An energetic attraction connects objects that have personal meaning for me, such as stones collected from beaches around the world, dead leaves found while out walking, thorns from the black Locust tree, animal and human skulls, and creates compositions that contain an intense and focused devotional energy that honors the disturbing balance of opposites that is the inner core of beauty.
It is disturbing because it exposes the paradoxical honesty that is the world. Beauty has to be both yin and yang, both light and dark, both life and death, both stability and motion, both emptiness and fullness, both black and white. It represents the unknown and often the unknowable, and is contained in the wordless power of these mysterious images.
Watercolor on paper60 x 60 diptych inches2005Catalog ID: 200562Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2005Catalog ID: 200502Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 22 inches2007Catalog ID: 200729Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2004Catalog ID: 200411Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2004Catalog ID: 200427Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200537Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200564Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2004Catalog ID: 200433Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2003Catalog ID: 200336Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2004Catalog ID: 200422Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2004Catalog ID: 200417Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper22 x 22 inches2005Catalog ID: 200535Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200501Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2006Catalog ID: 200649Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2005Catalog ID: 200544Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper18 x 18 inches2006Catalog ID: 200653Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2007Catalog ID: 200764Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2006Catalog ID: 200656Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2006Catalog ID: 200651Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2007Catalog ID: 200727Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2004Catalog ID: 200431Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200538Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2007Catalog ID: 200762Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2004Catalog ID: 200425Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200565Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200542Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper60 x 40 inches2004Catalog ID: 200415Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200541Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2004Catalog ID: 200419Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2006Catalog ID: 200650Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2007Catalog ID: 200733Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200504Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2005Catalog ID: 200547Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2004Catalog ID: 200418Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2007Catalog ID: 200728Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2004Catalog ID: 200432Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2007Catalog ID: 200766Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2004Catalog ID: 200426Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper40 x 40 inches2004Catalog ID: 200423Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper18 x 18 inches2005Catalog ID: 200543Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2008Catalog ID: 200840Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2007Catalog ID: 200726Download ⇩
Watercolor on paper29.5 x 29.5 inches2005Catalog ID: 200536Download ⇩