Welcome. In developing this site, I have endeavored to create an accessible portal through which you can enter into my artwork. Throughout, I have attempted to be forthcoming and revelatory regarding my creative process.  It is my goal to introduce you to the type of work I do, the methods I use, and the rationale behind it all.

I started painting professionally in 1992. Since then, I have developed from a painter of expressionistic landscapes to the abstract artist I am today. My primary motivation both then and now is the sanctity of life and our responsibility to safeguard the environment that supports it. In my work, I strive to provide a vision of reality that is based on the dynamics of the natural world and is informed by such concepts as cooperation and interdependence.

Ecology teaches us that the biosphere is a vast web of interrelationships functioning across many scales and levels of organization. In nature we observe a self-ordering process wherein individuals, be them cells, organisms, or populations, develop complex networks of relationships. What is intriguing and of profound significance is that nature's networks form solely on the basis of the individuals' propensity to interact. They are self-organizing.

The idea that complex order arises through self-organization of simpler components is a new current in scientific thought. In the sciences of complexity, the view is maintained that order in the universe arises spontaneously - that it is an inherent property of nature. Simple components interact and as the extent of their interaction exceeds a threshold value, they become organized. The newly organized components then exhibit novel behaviors or activities - in other words, they exhibit an emergent property. The now organized components continue to interact with other organized components giving rise to higher and higher levels of order and exhibiting additional emergent properties. The net result is the development of a complex and interactive system capable of evolution through adaptation.

Workers in the sciences of complexity speak of living organisms and their organ systems as complex adaptive systems. The human brain, which is widely believed to be the seat of consciousness, is a complex adaptive system par excellence: the multitude of interconnecting neurons and the endless interactions among them across the synapses creates a neural network that is capable of creating novelty, of emergence. Learning would be an example of this sort of brain emergence - the capacity to learn is not present in the individual neurons but arises as a result of their interactions.

Perhaps consciousness itself is an emergent property of the brain. Perhaps human consciousness is a complex adaptive system and as such, has the capacity to self-organize and create emergent order. That is to say that our minds have the capacity to organize themselves and thereby our world by their own accord. What are dreams if not the expression of a self-organizing consciousness?

At this point, a broader question is raised: if the physical world outside of us is self-organizing and complex and our internal, mental world is also self-organizing and complex, how is it that our behavior is so out of sync with the essential features of these two worlds? Or put differently, why is it a struggle for us to cooperate, to share, to safeguard our environment and its life forms when we, ourselves, are the embodiment of the principles of cooperation and interdependence? Herein lies the essence of my entire artistic enterprise.

We are reflections of self-organized complexity. We are its embodiment as well. I believe that visual imagery that embodies this fundamental principle can stir us to wakefulness; that our own self-organizing consciousness will recognize itself in the imagery and remember;and as a result we may unconsciously succeed in rekindling a connection to our own nature as beings - irreducible, interdependent, and an inextricable part of a much greater whole.

In my work, I manipulate colors and abstract shapes to develop relationships among independent, compositional elements. The visual relationships that arise initially, guide the formation of further and more complex relationships. The painting can be seen as developing along a self-ordering principle. As the work progresses, the individual components continue to interact and at some point the work takes on an emergent quality. The complex form seen in the finished pieces is now dependent upon and inseparable from the interactions between the component parts. Thus we are led to the conclusion that the whole - the completed artwork - is greater than the some of its parts.

I utilize chance and randomness to drive these compositions forward. I rely on self-organization to do the rest. Presently, I work in three modalities: all-over painting, cut-outs, and stencils & masks. In each case, I endeavor to bring the composition to a point where compositional elements are poised between order and chaos; between a solid color field and confetti - a kind of teetering balance. This balance represents a unique region in phase space, a critical condition where visual forms are unfixed, where ambiguity is high, and the composition remains in a constant state of flux. This dynamic visual space translates to an analogous space in the physical universe: for it is here at the border between order and chaos that self-ordering principles hold sway and complexity arises.

Visually, my paintings and collages speak to the interconnectedness of all being- so you see in the works depictions of dynamic balance and interdependence. But as regards their origin, if consciousness is indeed a complex adaptive system, they are created through the very process they hope to describe. In this case, process equals product and being and doing are one.

What does all of this have to do with the sanctity of life and the preservation of the biosphere? It is simple: only in recognizing ourselves in the natural environment can we hope to gain an appreciation of the sanctity of life and adjust our behavior accordingly. This recognition demands a fundamental shift in consciousness. The artworks you see here may nudge us a little closer to that shift.