Artist Statement

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Bouquet, Oil on Canvas, 22.5 x 28.5 in.

Art is a powerful agent of change. It can act as a guardian of the natural environment, shape discourse, and motivate action in a way that science alone cannot. As a painter, my most recent work addresses the alarming global crisis of plastic pollution. Plastic, made to last forever, never goes away. It cannot biodegrade, and as it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, it chokes and poisons the environment. It is so durable that the EPA reports, “every bit of plastic ever made still exists.”

My current body of work is a visual comment on the consequences of society’s rampant consumerism and its addiction to plastic. In this ongoing series of mid-sized paintings, I depict seemingly endless landscapes of plastic debris. The images are composed of densely packed compositions clogged with collected plastic items gathered from daily life. The objects that I select to paint range from random things picked up as litter to plastic toys that my children have loved and enjoyed. The objects are painted with tactile attention to detail, encouraging the viewer to look closely at the variety of small items included in each painting. These small discarded objects accumulate into a larger mass, just as the Earth’s major ocean gyres, inundated with plastic pollution. With these paintings, I hope to inspire and challenge viewers to consider how we envision and relate to our natural world at this critical moment in environmental history.

In another series of paintings also included on this site, I have selected the jigsaw puzzle as my subject matter. As a motif, the jigsaw puzzle is a mixture of challenge and play. The act of puzzling is seductive and entrancing as the puzzler joins pieces together to build something from nothing; creating order out of the chaos of scattered pieces.

The reward of completing a jigsaw puzzle is the sense of satisfaction that comes from seeing a difficult challenge through to the end. However, in this series of work, the puzzle is never completed. These “puzzle bouquets”, are in effect, impossible puzzles; the endeavor of bringing order to chaos is never fully realized.