And so, as I sleep, some dream beguiles me, and suddenly I know I am dreaming. Then I think: This is a dream, a pure diversion of my will: and now that I have unlimited power, I am going to cause a tiger.
Oh, incompetence! Never can my dreams engender the wild beast I long for. The tiger indeed appears, but stuffed or flimsy, or with impure variations of shape, or of an implausible size, or all too fleeting, or with a touch of the dog or the bird.
-Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges
My work begins with the Southern-California landscape. The landscape then morphs into a dream, into an essence or impression. My paintings are an attempt to capture and recreate the beauty of the landscape. They are thoughts, sketches, diagrams, maps, dreams, fantasies, plans, etc., etc.
Aside from recreating, the capturing is central to my work. How do we capture and articulate an essence? For me, it comes from memories. I am interested in how memories manifest in my work (and not just memories but dreams and fantasies as well because they are part of it too). How do our memories alter a place or experience? Do I change these places by remembering wrong? You may not be able to find the places in my paintings but they are accurate representations of my experience of a place. I have “seen” these houses, mountains, and oceans. I have driven the roads and walked the shores. I am interested in how incomplete our memories can be and how we fill in the blanks. I am most interested in the real California, the dream/fantasy of California and how those two things connect in my mind. Art serves as my way of reorganizing the world and trying to make sense of it. By piecing all of these parts together, maybe I can touch upon the impression that California has left on me.
I work directly from photographs of my travels to California; from memories and impressions that still linger; I sleep to dream about these places (or something like them); I fantasize about the abstract idea of California. This mish-mash conglomeration is what feeds my work.
It is in my conscious art making, with each painting, that I decide, I am going to cause a California! And this is what happens.
Oh, incompetence! Never can my dreams engender the wild beast I long for. The tiger indeed appears, but stuffed or flimsy, or with impure variations of shape, or of an implausible size, or all too fleeting, or with a touch of the dog or the bird.
-Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges
My work begins with the Southern-California landscape. The landscape then morphs into a dream, into an essence or impression. My paintings are an attempt to capture and recreate the beauty of the landscape. They are thoughts, sketches, diagrams, maps, dreams, fantasies, plans, etc., etc.
Aside from recreating, the capturing is central to my work. How do we capture and articulate an essence? For me, it comes from memories. I am interested in how memories manifest in my work (and not just memories but dreams and fantasies as well because they are part of it too). How do our memories alter a place or experience? Do I change these places by remembering wrong? You may not be able to find the places in my paintings but they are accurate representations of my experience of a place. I have “seen” these houses, mountains, and oceans. I have driven the roads and walked the shores. I am interested in how incomplete our memories can be and how we fill in the blanks. I am most interested in the real California, the dream/fantasy of California and how those two things connect in my mind. Art serves as my way of reorganizing the world and trying to make sense of it. By piecing all of these parts together, maybe I can touch upon the impression that California has left on me.
I work directly from photographs of my travels to California; from memories and impressions that still linger; I sleep to dream about these places (or something like them); I fantasize about the abstract idea of California. This mish-mash conglomeration is what feeds my work.
It is in my conscious art making, with each painting, that I decide, I am going to cause a California! And this is what happens.
