My work is rooted in a love of land. It speaks to the hallowed nature of place and the importance of land ethic.

The patterns and rhythms of nature continually inspire. Color variations of a grass field, shadows on a forest floor, shifting light and atmosphere. Increasingly, I seek to combine these visual narratives with the histories of place. How can we hold the stories of these lands to bring about curiosity, or discomfort or convey new ideas? Past, present and future collide. Imagined combines with real, abstraction with representation.

In the tradition of en plein air, my process begins out on the land. There I sketch, paint, template and collect artifacts which inform my studio practice. Materials are central to these discussions. My work combines layers of paint, ink, charcoal from burnt forests, graphite, and other materials to simultaneously construct and deconstruct.

As a process painter and artist, I have an affinity for mark making and the freedom of the Abstract Expressionists. Each work resolves at varying levels of abstraction, with the goal of luring the viewer into a personal sense of place and time.

Each year I create a limited number of more dimensional paper assemblages. These cutout works have allow me to introduce new materials such as feathers, rope and objects found during my time in nature.  They also frequently incorporate cyanotypes and digitally manipulated shapes. Each assemblage highlights the story of a specific geographic and often historical site.

*Berry, Wendell. Jayber Crow: A Novel. Washington, D.C: Counterpoint, 2000. Print.