With my work, I am striving to find harmony and balance amidst the chaos.

Working in encaustics as a medium serves my artistic purpose in the most direct way. It is both fluid and durable. I attempt to coax my imagination to expose whatever is lying beneath the surface and attempt to bring it to life. With the encaustic paint, I go through a series of steps and a process of layering paint, making marks, scratches, and brush strokes to build up the surface of the support. At the same time I also do lot of scrapping and literally scratching the surface. By starting with a blank support, by layering and stripping away the excess, I can hopefully get to the essence of what I am trying to say. In my mind’s eye, I am paring away the excess to reveal the depth. Over time a painting emerges that has a life of its own, its own essence, its own presence. That is my goal.

Hopefully, art moves the viewer to tears and/or calls the viewer to action. My inspiration comes from many places: world mythologies, poetry, Shakespeare, Buddhist thought, and current events. Using poetry or a newspaper article as inspiration, I let my mind range. Two years ago, the 108 beads of the Buddhist mala (rosary) inspired me to begin painting a series of 108 scrolls called the Heart Series. Growing up in Canada, I was exposed to Inuit and Northwest Coast Indian art, which has greatly influenced my thinking and visual aesthetic. The Inuit of Northern Canada believe when they carve into stone, there is a spirit, a human or animal figure, a story that is, in effect, released by carving away the excess. Iconically, the Haida have a specific visual language that orders their universe. An Inuit shaman said, “The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness and it can be reached only by suffering. Privation and suffering alone can open the mind of a man to all that is hidden to others.” To me this means, that to test one’s resolve, mettle, sense of being, the struggle with one’s inner demons, our doubts and insecurities we have to go a place, both physically and mentally where one alone can discover their true nature. We suffer everyday, why not accept and understand the suffering and use it to our own advantage. It is important to me that art be physically and mentally and, dare I say, spiritually resonant.

Mark Tobey, the painter, said, “The dimension that counts for the creative person is the space he creates within himself. This inner space is closer to the infinite than the other, and it is the privilege of the balanced mind—and the search for an equilibrium is essential—to be as aware of inner space as he is of outer space.” My work, I think, is simultaneously chaotic and serene. I want the work to become a meditation of sorts. I want to draw the viewer into the maelstrom and find calm. Perhaps they still find chaos. I am searching for that spark to make my work vibrant and transcendent.