The art that interests me approaches experience as a sequence of emotions, quandaries and paradoxes, whereas philosophy tends to view life as structured and knowable. I earned a doctorate interpreting Greek tragedy through the ethics and aesthetics of Aristotle, Kant and Nietzsche. Yet the tragedians I wrote about understood their gods, the soul, and the cosmos through art. Although I’m not up to projects of that magnitude, making prints is a lot more fun than reading Greek and German philosophers.
I like to manipulate shapes, colors and textures into objects of indeterminate nature, purpose, and identity, and in doing so invite the viewer’s engagement with the image in a process of free association. I seek to present forms that invite interpretation through a free and meaningful play of the viewer’s imagination within the colors, shapes and textures of the composition.
Some of my prints start out as compositions in traditional media such as photography, paint, ink or pencil which are then scanned and further modified electronically. Others begin as original sketches, collages or similar compositions done with a stylus on a graphics tablet. The work is printed with pigmented archival inks on Hahnemühle cotton rag paper.
Thus far, I have displayed my work in exhibitions at Laney College as well as in Berkeley at Café Zemocha, Mae’s Coffee House, the Downtown Restaurrant, Berkeley FastFrame, Au Coquelet Cafe, the Steingart Gallery in Oakland and the Fetterly Gallery in Vallejo. In December of 2007and in February of 2008 , I will be showing at the French Hotel, and Au Coquelet cafe .
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