Artist Statement

I started painting in the mid-1990s, mostly because I so loved looking at paintings that I thought it would be marvelous to try making one. Working primarily in oils, my work almost always draws on something seen, but altered by both accident and design. 

Today many of the images and compositions are evocative of Italy, though not necessarily in any representative way. It’s a place where I’ve spent much of my life, and where I’m most at home—the look and feel of the place, the language, the food and the people who cook it, the grapes and the people who grow them, the voices and music I hear, the sound and smell of the sea almost everywhere. Images and juxtapositions come from a word or phrase that I can’t get out of my head, from objects that catch my eye and won’t let go. 

A Minnesota native, I lived in Chicago for 25 years where I began painting, studying at Lill Street Studios, then moving to a shared studio space in the Ravenswood neighborhood. I still spend as much time as I can in Italy, with frequent return trips to places that have adopted me, small towns in Liguria and Puglia, the cities of Naples and Palermo. Currently living and working in  Minneapolis, I’ve had a studio in the NE Minneapolis Arts District since 2020 and recently moved to new space in the Kickernick Building in Minneapolis’ warehouse district.

Past shows and exhibitions have included Ravenswood Artwalk Chicago, Empirical Brewery Chicago, Office of the Cook Country Treasurer Chicago, Frameworks St. Paul, Your Art’s Desire Minnetonka, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Tiny Gallery Minneapolis, Art-a-Whirl Minneapolis, Sociable Cider Werks, Master Framers St.Paul.