About Me

My artistic imagination has been developing for over forty years and today I enjoy opportunities to show my paintings online and sell in local galleries. My professional fine art making practice has matured. So, now I make abstract expressionist paintings calling them landscape inspired because I attempt to show on canvas a very intimate bond I share as I experience day to day living in my urban world. Freestyle gives me confidence to stay loose in my painting techniques as I bring my expression to life, fashioning my design into a pleasing illustration of my own personal joyful feelings and ideas that I hope will excite the viewer's imagination. The painting emerges as I let go of preconceptions, explore my own feelings in relation to the shapes and colours I choose. In this way, the painting itself continually challenges me to render my experience as it develops. 

I have been asked what inspires my expressionistic paintings. It is simply what I feel as I respond to the environment I sense while out and about at any time of day. For example walking my dog daily in the city my mind opens allowing subjects to emerge. The very surprising effects of both natural and artificial light seen at all hours day and night grab my spirit and the art making process begins. I stop and stare at trees in parks, stones or twigs on the ground and flowers arranged in neighbourhood gardens, tall buildings, bridges, the sky above me and the bright shimmering waters on the ever-changing Lake Ontario I grew up beside and which we enjoy in Toronto.  It is the brilliant light I see on everything I attend to that instantly transforms everything around me moment by moment sparking my creativity. My emotions emerge and want to be shown. I am mesmerized by light transitioning colour, texture, form and line, often exhilarated and, as I understand it, this is how, intuitively, the concept develops and my composition is created. 

Creating abstract paintings allows the artist freedom to interpret the essence of the inspiration and show the experience as understood in that moment. So, as I paint or draw outdoors, I explore smart ways of making a visual statement to illustrate my feelings. Back in the studio, the ideas slowly sprout onto the canvas from my memory. In practice my experiential expressionistic painting is not usually quick and easy. A work that does not finish in a several hours may be propped onto an easel and studied for many more hours, a few days or even weeks. My paintings frequently demand adjustments and more observation before I can consider the creation a successful experiential design that I am confident is ready to show and evoke the viewer's imagination.

I have become a mixed media painter exploiting a wide range of techniques with all kinds of traditional and new art making materials now making up my palette. Acrylics combine with watercolour or oil paints, cold wax, pastels, graphite, charcoal, crayon, marble dust, a variety of markers, mediums and inks allow me to render my unique experience. I employ non-traditional new brilliant metallic paints, shiny gloss finishes, changeable interference colours, collaged materials, scraping and spreading tools, brushes, palette knives, stamps, transfers, embedded glass, sand or pebbles even glitter dust to exhibit a genuine excitement I feel and share passionately. Translucent paint colours, glazing and wash techniques make up many underlayers that show through in the finished work. So, as I discover how these materials mix with each other, fresh designs develop. Original works are painted on canvas, birch wood panel supports or yupo paper. I also make garden inspired varied edition 1/1 collagraphs from monoprints on watercolour paper. My products are made exclusively using professional grade archival quality as I understand it to the extent that new materials come to my attention.  

Exposure to international art in the ever-changing world I touch in my travels is the underlying reference that inspires my expression while music swirling in my head provides impetus for my creative energy. I hear favourite singer/songwriters Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, Leonard Cohen's there is a crack in everything....  that's how the light gets in, or Cat Stevens', Morning Has Broken ...  even Bach, Bizet, Verdi, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Chopin (so many) and tenors singing The Pearl Fishers, Hvorostovsky and Kaufmann haunt me as I paint! 

To illustrate my listening experience, sounds may show on canvas as sweeping lines which are the direct influence of the works of my esteemed early teachers, Canadian painters John MacGregor https://cowleyabbott.ca/artist/john_macgregor  , Bert Weir https://bertweir.com/ , Gershon Iskowitz https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/gershon-iskowitz/biography  Activity is shown in my paintings often as dramatic drips, dribbles and drops in imitation of famous American painter Jackson Pollock's striking compositions! 

My very favourite contemporary painter, poet. Tom Raterman https://thomasraterman.wordpress.com/ and  https://www.zhibit.org/tomraterman/existential-zstates/on-the-journey   inspires and mentors me to this day. Several associate local artist plein air painting colleagues keep me moving forward as we discuss the latest techniques and materials.  

I have been art making for as long as I can remember. So painting my expression has become more assured with practice. Now I paint in a non-traditional very loose style using a variety of mark making products and tools, constantly exploring a wide range of techniques. In fact, hundreds of admired professional writers, poets, actors, directors, dancers, and musicians impact my artmaking today. So I suggest that my creations have become a unique dynamic composite of the works of many. I am proud to contribute my God-given talents to a rich local and global arts culture.

I plan my creation to excite your emotions and probe your imagination like poetry or music as it dances in your mind and spirit. I invite you to enter the world of happenings in my painting. A sensitive viewer, you realize your own deep thoughts felt while gazing at a soft harmonious stillness showing the sounds of silence manifested. The painting must delight bringing wonder into your home for years to come.