Artist Statement
In my work, I’m conscious of time’s paradoxes — how what we’ve lost can exist so solidly in the present, while the present itself feels like it’s dissolving around us. My art expresses themes of impermanence and imperfection, of the yearning for connection, of the potency of inner life.
My mixed media paintings are composed of countless layers of hand-printed and -painted papers, combined with book pages and other ephemera. Moving back and forth between intention and chance, the formal and the fortuitous, I try to land the work in a place where hope and decay converge.
Bio
I’ve always longed for a creative life.
After leaving college with a degree in creative writing, I spent several years supporting myself with odd jobs while I labored over a bad novel. I finally chucked it and enrolled in law school, and, somehow, three and a half decades went by.
Even as a lawyer, I’ve been primarily interested in the creative process. This has meant, in the courtroom, using contrast and juxtaposition to disrupt clichéd thinking; summoning the power in particularity; leaning in to the yin-and-yang of intention and improvisation — all things with parallels in the studio.
If you’ve ever shared a courtroom with me, you’ll know that I’m incapable of sticking to the outline. It’s not that I can’t say things simply (simplicity being merely another creative choice); I just can’t seem to say them straightforwardly. I can’t resist the wayward detail, the layered explaining. Whatever that quality is in me likely explains my preference for abstraction. I like abstraction’s not-obviousness. I’m drawn to its mystery, its harmonics and ambiguities. I love thinking about abstract composition, which, like its name, involves a balancing of incongruities.
Schedule
57th Street Art Fair, Chicago (Hyde Park), June 7-8, 2025
Minnehaha Falls Art Fair, Minneapolis, July 18-20
Loring Park Art Festival, Minneapolis, July 26-27, 2025
Port Clinton Art Festival, Chicago (Highland Park), August 23-24, 2025
Third Ward Art Festival, Milwaukee, August 30-31, 2025