Statement

My work has always been about place. Each painting is created with the hope of passing on my personal visual interpretation of a particular place to the viewer. I strive to render every painting with the highest commitment to realism and craftsmanship that I can, both to accurately capture the place as well as draw the viewer in to a close proximity and personal relationship with my paintings. I work very much in the manner and tradition of the Photorealist movement, feeling that in the current age, society demands work of this highly refined and accurate nature to be convincing as realism and/or truly representational. In an age of HDTV and computer-generated special effects and photography, the modern eye and mind interprets this type of illusionism as convincing and authentic. Through the ages, what has been the cutting edge of representational art has evolved, and what had been considered the very finest of illusion and realism 150 years ago can now look stiff and dated to the modern viewer. I am working to engage the viewers of my work in a way that I can pass on to them the most authentic image and feeling of the places I choose to paint.


My current body of work includes a project I am calling “100 Views of Tokyo.” This is a long-term commitment to a subject that is both an homage to the artists I have admired and been influenced by as well as my own opportunity to explore a subject intimately, artistically, and intellectually, over a long, sustained period of time. I aim to create a body of work that will visually examine my experience of the city of Tokyo: its place, its architecture, its spaces, etc.  My exploration is of the contemporary place as it exists now. The paintings observe the modernity as well as the evolution of the place and the culture that created and maintains it, from the old Edo period city to the cosmopolitan global city it is currently. Concurrently, I continue to work on images of the landscapes and place of Old Order Amish communities in America as I have for the majority of my career. The two places and cultures have both had dramatic roles in my life and experience, and therefore seem natural subjects to explore by way of painting. I enjoy learning about the places I paint and experiencing it on a highly personal level beyond that of tourist, documentarian, or student. In the case of Tokyo, I have connections with the city that date back to the Edo-era city, and that connection allows me to feel comfort and attachment enough to paint with conviction. Like my paintings of Amish communities, my view of Tokyo is taken from a common, personal, perspective. I strive to portray the place as-is, perhaps with great nostalgia, but free of romanticism.

I like to think the author Hidenobu correctly describes the experience I have had and try to pass on to the viewers of my work in his book "Tokyo: A Spatial Anthropology". He writes, "We have become so accustomed to travelling subway or elevated highway that we have become insensitive to the rich variety of features found in everyday life.  Reading the city requires us to walk its streets and experience it for ourselves.” That expresses a relation to place similarly to my approach in gathering and creating images of both Tokyo and Amish communities. I paint accessible and real places, seen on the human scale and eye level, as you can see it for yourself.

“100 Views of Tokyo” will stand together as a body of work almost serving as an album of my experience and relationship with the city and place. Each painting has its own individual merit and value, but the complete body of paintings overall is the final and cohesive piece of art. It will take many years to complete, but as with my work portraying the farms and land of the Amish, only then will I feel that I have a complete relationship and understanding of the unique and yet always foreign place I am painting. My painting creates that relationship for me, and ultimately I hope to pass some of that on to the viewers of my work.