Biography
I have been painting since the 1970’s. A fourth generation native Southern Californian, my work follows the paths of Minimalism and the Light and Space Movements while finding its roots in Southern California’s natural environment.
An athlete, competitive surfer and extreme skier at a young age, my experiences in the mountains, oceans, deserts and cities of Southern California form the background for my life and art. I was introduced to some of Southern California’s most famous surf beaches - Trestles, Rincon, Riviera, T-Street, Brooks Street, 40th Street, The Wedge, and Jim Young’s - by my father, a well known local surfer and businessman. And it was my grandfather, a rancher and early developer of the Los Angeles suburb we now call Hollywood, who inspired my love for the deserts and city streets of downtown L.A.. Many of our weekend explorations together ended up at the Metropolitan warehouse at Sixth and Alameda.
A life-experience of extremes has brought with it a consciousness of the edge - and its implications both physical and psychological. My paintings seek to both explore that edge and to push beyond it - tapping into experience (both physical and mental) and tracing them to the present. My process, along with materials, are important, as each change nuances the work - much as each shift of the edge of a ski changes the tracks and excels the speed or slows it down. The sound of glass bead gel applied with a palette knife is reminiscent of the kinesthetics skiing on hard packed snow.
I paint with brush and knife, often using materials influenced by the surfing and skiing industries: fluorescent sprays, iridescents, epoxy resins, beaded glass gels, and inks. Combined with oils, inks, acrylics, pastes and fluid and matte mediums, these materials achieve the luminosity in my paintings: the glare of the sun on a gritty Los Angeles street; the iridescent grunion in the Pacific waters at low tide; the dangerous grayness of a whiteout in the High Sierras. When viewing my work under natural light, the paintings change and play off of one another creating an optical effect. Highly nuanced color, texture, shape and movement reveal themselves as the light - or the viewer - subtly shifts and changes position.
I have been painting since the 1970’s. A fourth generation native Southern Californian, my work follows the paths of Minimalism and the Light and Space Movements while finding its roots in Southern California’s natural environment.
An athlete, competitive surfer and extreme skier at a young age, my experiences in the mountains, oceans, deserts and cities of Southern California form the background for my life and art. I was introduced to some of Southern California’s most famous surf beaches - Trestles, Rincon, Riviera, T-Street, Brooks Street, 40th Street, The Wedge, and Jim Young’s - by my father, a well known local surfer and businessman. And it was my grandfather, a rancher and early developer of the Los Angeles suburb we now call Hollywood, who inspired my love for the deserts and city streets of downtown L.A.. Many of our weekend explorations together ended up at the Metropolitan warehouse at Sixth and Alameda.
A life-experience of extremes has brought with it a consciousness of the edge - and its implications both physical and psychological. My paintings seek to both explore that edge and to push beyond it - tapping into experience (both physical and mental) and tracing them to the present. My process, along with materials, are important, as each change nuances the work - much as each shift of the edge of a ski changes the tracks and excels the speed or slows it down. The sound of glass bead gel applied with a palette knife is reminiscent of the kinesthetics skiing on hard packed snow.
I paint with brush and knife, often using materials influenced by the surfing and skiing industries: fluorescent sprays, iridescents, epoxy resins, beaded glass gels, and inks. Combined with oils, inks, acrylics, pastes and fluid and matte mediums, these materials achieve the luminosity in my paintings: the glare of the sun on a gritty Los Angeles street; the iridescent grunion in the Pacific waters at low tide; the dangerous grayness of a whiteout in the High Sierras. When viewing my work under natural light, the paintings change and play off of one another creating an optical effect. Highly nuanced color, texture, shape and movement reveal themselves as the light - or the viewer - subtly shifts and changes position.