I have been an artist for much of my life, specializing in landscapes. It seems like a very long time ago that I studied oil painting for nine years at the Vincent Trotta School of Art in Flushing, New York. I went on to study history and have lived and taught in North Carolina, California, the Netherlands, and Michigan with an emphasis on the early modern era.
My artistic efforts have been directed, particularly in the last decade, toward the development of a classical style — realist but not in the sense of modern photo-realism, instead with a view to learning from the painterly insights of the landscape traditions of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. My work, therefore, divides into two categories, original oils and what I think of as études or hommages. The former are typically done on the basis of sketches or impressions of places where I have traveled and been moved either by the natural force of the scene or by a striking feature of the landscape, whether a result of nature or of human activity. The latter are based on works of landscape artists of the past, not as copies, but as exercises in the development of my own sensibilities and technique.
My intention is to more evoke a mood or a feeling than simply to represent — to call forth a sense of life and force in the natural order and our human connection with it, either in simple contemplation or in interaction.
I try to paint with a vision of the whole scene in mind. My work begins with a selection of suitable supports and grounds, typically a gessoed surface with a minimum of “tooth,” often a prepared wood panel. Although I sometimes do direct painting, I often proceed to a priming of the ground in a foundational tint and an underdrawing or to an underdrawing followed by a toning of the whole, prior to application of successive layers of paint leading toward the final coloration and detail. I prefer a fairly limited palette and traditional pigments, especially the natural earths.
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