WHY I ENJOY PAINTING …
Painting from real life, or plein air, in watercolor, has become a second career and passion for me. For most of my professional life, as an architect, I have enjoyed being able to easily sketch the structures that I envisioned for my clients. Mostly I sketched buildings, often within their urban or rural context. Today I am more interested in the landscape or urban context than I am in the buildings or structures. The joy of discovering, almost as found objects, fragments of buildings, defined more by their surroundings than by their form, has added an element of surprise and freshness to how I view cities and architecture.
Figures, clothed or unclothed, within an interior landscape context adds a richness and liveliness to the color and texture of the paintings. Seeing the relationships between forms, often as negative space, has provided an added dimension to the painting of figures as well as still lives, which when seen as interior landscapes, can be become more dynamic and vivid.
MY BACKGROUND AS A PAINTER …
As a young architecture student at Cooper Union, I discovered new ways of seeing figures and landscapes, through drawing and painting, with the help of Charles Cajori. Discovering watercolor as a medium in early 2004, first as a student of Timothy Clarke at the Art Student’s League, and then as a student at the National Academy since 2006, with David Dewey, Elizabeth O’Reilly, and since 2009, with Kamilla Talbot
Attending summer workshops on the coast of Maine with David Dewey, from 2006 to today, followed by visits to Monhegan Island, and intensive week long classes at Governors Island in New York Harbor, with Kamilla Talbot, have also profoundly influenced my growth as a painter.
My work has been exhibited at the National Academy’s juried Annual Student Shows from 2007 thru 2012, and “Creative Mischief” from 2013 – 2015 ; at “Painting Governors Island”, a show of National Academy and New York Studio School student work, organized by Kamilla Talbot, in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and at a three person group show on “Governors Island” in 2012, and at the National Academy in 2013.