Artist's Statment

Artist’s Statement

My life has been a journey of exploration, identifying and experiencing the energies that are present in and around us. Painting, martial arts and meditation have been my tools for becoming aware and expressing these energies, and now I am in a position to comment on my process.

I experience life as a spectrum of energy from essence through to the visible and tangible world of things, people and culture. As a painter, I allow my creative side (right brain) to have free rein to express this life energy as I am living it in the moment. Whether I paint forms or non-objective abstraction is a matter left to my creative impulse.

If I am painting outdoors in nature, I will likely paint the landscape, but I will also be expressing how I feel in that landscape. In this way, both the outer forms I see and my awareness of my inner experience of feelings and intuitions influence the painting.

I am careful not to overload my experience with internal dialogue, as that would shift me out of the creative meditative zone.

When I am working in my studio, I usually start from nothing in mind, which allows me to enter into the present moment. From that place of infinite potential I allow the painting to reveal itself, as I am swept along in the creative flow; in this way I am able to experience life energy directly.

My approach to painting has been shaped by my experience of 38 years in the Japanese martial art, aikido. Every situation I encounter is affected by the awareness I choose to bring to it. For example, the thought might arise in me that I want the painting to look exciting and desirable so that it will sell; such a thought would be a distraction from the direct experience of painting and diminish the expression. I let go of the thoughts and allow creative flow to guide me.

There is a dynamic tension between the inner and outer world; they elicit responses from each other. In my body, I connect what I experience back to essence via my feelings and sensations making the shift from something very concrete to something very energetic and alive. Inside I tap into my energetic being and make the conversion between the relative world and the Absolute; I bridge the gap and paint.