For my thesis show at BU, one of my favorite paintings I made I named “Invigorate.” Dark and stormy, this was my first abstract landscape! I began without a clue of what I would be making, but had some old black and brown paint which was crusting a bit so I wanted to use it up. As I brushed it on, the texture reminded me of rocks. I had some house paint that I also wanted to use up so I added that and waves emerged, crashing on the shore!

Up until then, I had always painted from life or a photograph. Painting intuitively and from memory was freeing! It felt like the true expression of my self was coming out on the canvas! From that moment on abstract expressionist painters Willem de Kooning and Richard Diebenkorn became my gurus and I had found my style.

If my paintings are a family, my latest collection of works are the children of “Invigorate!” Dark coastal abstract landscapes, these new works are inspired by the heaviness of the end of fall, entering into winter and the memories of the past few cold Covid seasons and associated feelings of isolation and loneliness.

With the darkness of these pieces, I hope you also find beauty. During the height of the pandemic, like many I began seeking out outdoor spaces with no crowds where I could be fully immersed in nature. This led me to, among other places, Fortrose on the Moray Firth, northeast of Inverness in Scotland. The memory of this magical, isolated place seeped through into the collection.

As Jane Goodall, my childhood hero put it, “no words of mine can ever describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected.”

Thank you for visiting "Dark Tides!"