Artist Statement

While painting is my most comfortable language, my formal training is in music; this background peeks through in my art’s movement, contrast, harmony, and occasional dissonance. 

Years before I became serious about visual art, my college clarinet professor structured a lesson around a painting on his office wall. It was a winding forest trail. He told me, “The reason I love this painting is that it goes somewhere; your music needs to go somewhere.” His advice was formative for me. At the time, I applied the idea musically, shaping lines and phrases to carry my listeners through a story. When I shifted my focus to painting, without realizing I kept striving to create art that moved. Instead of using the rise and fall of musical passages, this is now evident in shifting lines and perspectives, or in colors changing warmth with distance.

Color is another musical element to me. In music, there are combinations of pitches in harmony that we expect to hear, and others that are surprising, maybe even unpleasant. The same is true for color. I use different color families to create a variety of moods, and I especially love to add the “wrong” color to palettes to add interest, tension, and motion.

As a musician, I worked to combine all these elements to tell compelling stories through sound. Painting is no different, and I am no different working between the disciplines. As a creator, I imagine stories for everything, completing details in the world around me. Weaving these narratives makes me feel excited, joyful, and even playful about everyday life. Acrylic paint is my favorite storytelling medium because of how easily it lets me layer and blend bright, sometimes unexpected colors, to craft dramatic movement and harmonies. I hope my art captures your imagination and inspires you to create your own stories.