Exhibiting in Seattle neighborhoods has inspired me to explore pop culture, world mythology, and the human condition. In this vein, I create unusual portraits, scenes, and dream-scapes that are often paradoxical and humorous. In this exhibit, however, I also explore abstraction, focusing on the undulating lines that appear in my paintings. Waking the Dead is my first featured show at La Familia Gallery, and it reveals how the Artist Cooperative has motivated me to raise the bar and find new life in my work.

In the Waking the Dead series, I try to capture the spirit of music—the rhythm, collaboration, and inspiration—using wavelengths and animated figures, as well as harmonies and dissidents via form and color.

Influential to Waking the Dead is the New Orleans funeral procession, the murals of Diego Rivera, and the works of Jackson Pollock. Wanting to make a leap with my palette, I’ve optimized my colors by applying several glazes of intense hues. 

The “Waking” suggests an epiphany, how music inspires. Illustrating this is an animated cemetery in the lower right corner of “Waking the Dead,” the hallmark painting of the series. In this painting, the gold headstones and animated grass gather along a river of color, a spectrum of sound, which embraces the musicians and dancers and raises them from the depths.

A second feature of the series is the Music Farm Triptych. Its centerpiece is the “Urban Music Farm,” inspired by a Seattle organization that brings singers, bands, and musicians together to host musical events. This painting is complemented by “Singing Moon” (on the left) and “Strum at the Moon” (on the right), the moon imagery suggesting the metaphysical, a cosmic muse at work.

Once the Music Farm Triptych was completed, the rest of the series fell into place. The “Rhythms,” wavelengths of intense colors with more dramatic lines, were added as a final touch, and are hung intermittently between the larger works to employ more movement and to create a symphony of line and color.

Hope you enjoy the show.

Artist Bio:

I am a self-taught artist, with degrees in English and Advertising from Michigan State University. After graduation, I taught oversees and hoped to write a novel, which—years later—became “Shadow Gathering,” a sci-fi thriller that explores an ancient secret society coping in a modern world. Although my manuscript was solicited by Penguin Publishing, it never made it to print.

Painting entered my life in 1995, shortly after I moved to Seattle. Here, I started painting to authenticate a local artist in my novel. In the process, I found painting came easier. And painting would come and go while I explored various careers in order to survive.

During my quest, I taught English in Switzerland and then Sociology and Psychology in Detroit. In Seattle, I worked as a technical writer, project manager, and corporate trainer. In 2002, I produced a calendar of artwork, “13 Moons,” which sold in over 20 Seattle bookstores, including Elliott Bay Books, East-West Books, and the University of Washington Bookstore.

In 2009, I joined La Familia Gallery and Artist Cooperative, exhibiting with them at the Aqua Art International Expo in Miami and Gallery Golden Point in Finland. In Seattle, I’ve shown at venues in downtown, the SODO, Fremont, and Art Walks in Ballard, Capitol Hill, and Pioneer Square.