Biography

 

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

I paint for myself and am pleased that people get something out of what I do. Formal elements and the way we see things interest me. I have always been attracted to a certain amount of illusion in painting, partly because it arouses wonder about what is real. The paradox of illusion and reality is not a contradiction if we consider illusion as one of the many shifting realities of life. Images and goals move on and fade as, once we achieve them, they somehow seem changed, different than what we had expected.

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My paintings are non-objective and highly influenced by memories and feelings that are aroused while painting. Childhood experiences, travel and memories of how I have felt while in specific places are filtered by time and imagination to set the mood of my paintings. Foreign places are especially stimulating because they make me see with the fresh unconditioned eyes of an outsider — more like a child. Both old and new art are influential. I admire the skills of old masters such as Caravaggio, El Greco, Botticelli and Rembrandt, artists who largely established the moods of their paintings by how they painted drapery and light. The bravura, spontaneity and dynamic compositions of the abstract expressionists are also impressive.

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My long time experience with airbrush painting enables me to establish a flowing illusionism. Airbrushing is so natural for me that I no longer think about technique. I work in a meditative state, trusting instincts and feelings, enabling thoughts and memories to become imbedded into my paintings. Realism and abstraction are blended, as are distant and here, past and present, memories and feelings – a communion of the inner and outer world.

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EDUCATION:

1971 MFA, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
1966 MA, University of Minnesota, Duluth
1959 BS, Minnesota State University, St. Cloud