Artist's Statement:

Moving from decades of dedicated figural, narrative painting from

life, I began a slow shift towards abstraction that accelerated in

2000 during my first year in Hungary. An idiosyncratic abstract idiom

emerged, drawn partly from forms absorbed during years of intense

visual scrutiny. Symbols of personal significance evolved, forming the

basis of a visual vocabulary. Process as subject has taken on greater

importance, with serial works documenting the development and use

of those forms. The work also presents itself as object (page, scroll,

totem, relic, etc.). The medium itself is its own reality. The years in

Hungary and central Europe forced wide open my use of media and

unrestricted working processes have brought my work to a vital edge. I

cross borders as needed, describing and defining an internal landscape

while simultaneously reflecting inescapable external realities.

My "Fragmentation" series, thirty-seven tempera/collage paintings,

was done in Budapest and Vermont during 2011-2012. The method

began with collage before paint, then found, torn papers placed on

the surface, followed by tempera painted with stiff bristle brushes.

Sometimes I made linear incisions into the wet Hungarian paint with

the back end of the brush. They were done rapidly. The focus shifted

as the series developed - from distinct, animated forms in space, to

form and space vying for dominance; then form crowded out space,

sometimes even eliminating spatial play entirely with a shift to a dense,

flat picture-plane. Finally, I wrestled with old painted surfaces and

pursued a more vigorous application of collage and paint.