Spanning more than three decades, my work addresses contemporary political, social, and spiritual issues and events. In various media, my work examines the fragile and ephemeral nature of human existence, especially in the context of social turmoil and crisis.
The most prevalent theme or direction in my artwork is the expression of events experienced or witnessed through the media -- September 11, 2001, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Vietnam War, the conflicts in Ireland, the Balkans and Sierra Leone, and the War in Iraq. The works were conceived to commemorate these tragic events with a sense of mourning and loss. Sources for these works include media-generated photographs as well as written descriptions about these events.
Responding to the post-September 11th climate of denial throughout the United States -- especially among American visual artists – my Tribes series explores the lives of people with different interests, beliefs, and priorities existing in conflict.
Among several large, mixed media multi-paneled works, Tribes V includes the distorted images of Iraqi and American flags linked by large panels of oil-soaked sand. In a similar multi-paneled work, Tribes VI, I address the troubled relationship between the people of Israel and Palestine.
I have been, and continue to be, interested in creating visual art that can transcend the physicality of the material surface and be a vehicle for emotional, spiritual and intellectual contemplation, as well as a metaphor for human existence, especially within my own time.
My work echoes a statement by the German artist Gerhard Richter, “art can express profound mourning while remaining the highest form of hope.”
