The most important work I do as an artist is to step outside of formality, to pursue the emotional process of adding ink and mixed media to paper. My work embraces simplicity, and is tied to immediacy, and an Abstract Expressionist style. Theme, color and technique unify my work, in a narrow juxtaposition. Relationships, sexuality and connectedness are common themes for me, yet there is also a suggestion of aloneness.

 

Friends, relatives, and associates surround us, but we are singular in what we see, hear, believe, hope and desire.  We function within the complexities of life alone. Loneliness and aloneness  are prominent in my life, and consistently appear in abstract representations of my worldview.

 

Color is symbolic in my work, with an almost cliché context. Yellow is light and happiness. Green is symbolic of nature, grass, insects, landscapes. Red represents fear, danger, bloodshed and sacrifice--emphatically a component of the human condition.

 

Technically I’ve used various media to create portraits, animals, landscapes and still life; I’ve used collage, found objects, paint and wood. Yet my passion lies in my experimental work with ink and oil pastels. I define shapes pouring puddles of water, then add pigment. Color strikes water for an immediate response on paper. Abstract ideas emerge long before I interpret. My process involves emotion, tilting paper, coercing pigment to drip, well up, rise or flow. The work is finished when it dries, unless I perceive a shape or design, which I enunciate with a pallet of oil pastels. I use oil pastels to layer, scratch and cut shapes into designs. I unify my work in series, by color, theme and technique.

 

Brown: Folk Heroes are paintings, celebrating diversity in an African American landscape, using hues of Sepia to symbolically embrace the beauty of dark complexions. The Blue Series are paintings that emphasize  aloneness, and balancing oneself on mountains of circumstance. Blue is also akin to The Blues as music genre, and the vast, unconquerable sea and sky. The Island Series are larger works that symbolize individual loneliness.

 

My personal vision as an artist is impacted by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s narrative moments. Romare Bearden’s influence lies in my dedication to watercolor and collage. The late, Contemporary, artist, Gilda Snowden’s influence shapes my aesthetic approach. She introduced me to Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, encouraging my free expression, material experimentation and creative process.