“I usually end up painting the places I can’t talk myself out of painting. There are certain places that just have an unexplainable draw for me, an attraction. The Piscataqua River is one of these places. Everything in this area is ruled by the sea. The weather is constantly shifting and the light reflecting off and through the water is very elusive. The salt air hangs over the surrounding towns and permeates the landscape. There is an ancient feeling to this place that lies just below the veneer of a modernity that clings tenuously to the cliffs and islands that dot the mouth of the river.
The work in this show explores this shimmering landscape and the tensions that lie therein. I work directly on site and from memory in my studio. I go back and forth from the site to the studio for months. Of course the weather and light conditions are never the same so the resulting images tend to be a distillation of how the place feels. This distilled quality of the finished work transcends the place itself and ultimately becomes more real to me.”
