When I start a new painting I imagine that the blank canvas is replete with hundreds and thousands of images, unseen like molecules of air and the atoms in the space between them. First, I fill the surface with black gouache. The velvety richness of the paint becomes caught in the crevices like dust inviting images into the shadows. Often they appear whole as if ingrained in the fibers of the page. Others are only half-exposed, dimly seen, yet needing little assistance, perhaps a brush stroke, to emerge.

And then sometimes the images are buried in the marks and exist more like a phantom limb itching to be rendered out of memory. When I reach a fork in the road I find the direction to take with a roll of the dice. With Duchamp and his Stoppages in mind, I use a casual toss of a strand of pearls. In the serendipitous order of their fall I reclaim the paint with my brush. Unveiled, the orbs meander randomly, yet like the chance notes in a John Cage composition, they carrying the theme. This process of reclaiming the paint, of uncovering images, is an excavation, a game of archeology and chance.

Under the mentorship of Tom Wudl these last two years I have learned that the most important tools in the artist's arsenal are to slow down, to pay attention, and to accept that that which is not yet apparent exists, and is perfectly in tune. The resolution of the painting indisputably proves the unseen and justifies that faith.

The Black Paintings are short studies or short conversations with black gouache on paper that have guided me to deeper excavations of my temperament. The continuation of this work combines painting with sculpture, gently balancing the narrative between figurative and abstract, surface and dimension, time and space.