Artist Statement

In the last 32 years since my first show I have explored many subjects, materials and techniques as a painter and have also made low relief and in the round sculpture.

Five years ago I stopped making sculpture and returned to painting. For the last 3 years I have been looking at and painting houseplants on a windowsill in our house on the edge of the lake in Hamilton, Ontario. Canada. Cora, my wife, is an artist and she also has a green thumb. Our house is full of plants.

Many of these paintings are made on two or more stretched canvas panels joined together. These joined pieces are my attempt to reflect the structure and spacing of a row of windows in a sunroom facing the lake. These are acrylic paintings.

In the first of these new paintings I saw an old interest emerging. I realized that what I was trying to show in my early paintings were qualities that I experience when looking at every day things. I have occasionally felt a part of these qualities and not separate from them as an observer. I feel that these qualities arise from the five elements of earth, fire, water, air and ether, which I believe are the subtle forms behind the physical appearance of every thing. I hope that the viewer recognizes from his or her own experience the character and qualities of form, the light, space, weather and the atmosphere in these paintings. I want to make these qualities as clear as possible. I think that I have always been drawn to the beauty of the way things look to me rather than a conceptual exploration of ideas about them.
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For me this work is also about trying to understand a mysterious stillness that the use of certain forms of geometry seems to create when used in the composition and design of the paintings. I sometimes feel at one with that stillness, order and beauty and would like to return to that oneness in the process of looking and painting.