Artist’s Statement:
Late 2022, I began to come down with a mysterious illness. My life was turned upside down, but also brought into focus what life means. I began working as best I could not being able to walk and seeing double vision.

My other visual art styles and directions didn’t seem to connect with what I was dealing with. My drawings are sometimes connected to my paintings and sculptures, but I felt it was time to integrate this practice into my paintings. I became interested in Stoic Philosophy and personal responsibility. I also felt keenly aware of the precious and fragile nature of my life in this body - the medical journey of discovering I had a permanent disease and ultimately becoming aware of a giant cancerous tumor that was growing in my chest that related to my disease of Myesthenia Gravis. I knew if I was going to die, sooner than I anticipated, I would make a series of work that was bold and called the spirits bluff!

The drawings and cosmic shapes danced with energetic color. This wasn’t a body of work that celebrated or dwelled in death, but rather explained life and my artwork to the world from my singular point of view from Seattle Washington USA. It was an expression of life and experience.

I first began to draw out my composition exploring as new to my awareness designing a fresh experience. The pre-drawings evolved around six zones and each zone represented the complex influnces of modern life. Politics, religion, hope and struggle. This complex intersection of ideas bounced off the hard edged boundaries that were the six zones. Within each zone, the Maximalist flourishing characters ignited the surface. Next I gave the mood with washes of water based clears, almost sublimating the drawn lines. I worked through many layers of oil based washes and painted the shapes to explore color and dimension. Finally, I struggled to bring this all dynamic into harmony or concert as a whole.

When the Surgeon removed the tumor in my Thymus organ from my body, I was in a deep dark place akin to death. When they woke me up, severe pain showered my body with waves. I realized there was only two things that were truly important with my time left here on this rock. Love and Art. Love for the people in my life and community and art. My own art, but also the art of other peoples, genuinely interested in my global art community.