Short Bio

Born in Kansas City Missouri 1968, studied painting at the SMFA in Boston 2000 to 2004, currently lives and works in Melrose FL

Statement

My work has always been fueled by a combination of my deep interest in the history of painting and my personal connection with paint as a medium for expression. My early paintings (circa 1998) drew inspiration from Dutch still life masters. Through traditional still-life subjects such as lemons, onions, and fish, I strived to create representationally sound visual statements that spoke to composition, color, and technique. By 2001 I was well invested in this type of picture making and studio discipline, but was struggling with and increasingly disinterested in choosing subject matter. Why a lemon specifically? Why a fish? Despite their symbolic potential, beyond their function of giving the paint a way to convey its nature, these subjects just didn’t resonate for me personally. So I began a search for a non-representational, non-objective visual language of my own. I began manipulating thinned paint or stains with air, by blowing paint across a flat, smooth surface with a straw. I became intrigued with the cellular, organic effects this technique produced visually as well as the subliminal connotation of creation through the act of "breathing" the image into existence. I've continued to refine and evolve variations of this technique over the years, sometimes resulting in hard-edged, graphic abstraction, sometimes in all-over, softer images, reminiscent of color field paintings of the 1940's-1960's .

 

 

In this current body of work (2017 to present), I've attempted to circle back to the realm of traditional painting: oil on stretched canvas, glazing techniques and visible brushwork. Still using variations of my air technique, I've set myself to the task of “painting out the trick”, so to speak. In past works, the air-blown images were the primary focus of the paintings, typically supported by solid color fields as constructs to display the images. My current work reflects further refinement of technique, in an effort to both inform the basic composition and provide a monochromatic underpainting. This allows me (forces me) to make many more painterly decisions regarding color, tone and texture, and in some cases to directly quote the historic, while preserving non-objectivity.

Resume / CV

Solo Shows
Mossman Center, Melrose, FL, 2020
Clifford Smith Gallery, March, 2003
 
Group Shows 
The Late Show Gallery, Kansas City MO, 1995
The Late Show Gallery, Gazpacho, Kansas City MO, 1996
The Nipsey Gallery, Kansas City MO, 1997
Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY, 1999
Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo NY, 2000
Museum of Fine Arts, Drawing Not Drawing, Boston, MA, 2002
Clifford Smith Gallery, Boston MA,  February, 2003
Museum Of Fine Arts, "Art In Bloom", Boston MA
ARTcetera, Boston, MA, 2004
Side Street Gallery, Pittsboro, NC, 2004
Lynn Foundation, Kansas City, MO, 2005
Epsten Gallery, Urban Suburban, Overland Park, KS, 2006
Dot Gallery, Chris Teasley and Max Key,  Kansas City, MO, 2006
Epsten Gallery, Urban Suburban, Overland Park, KS, 2007
Hoffman LaChance Contemporary, Max Key and Chris Teasley, St.Louis, MO, 2008
Perennial Places Gallery, Kansas City, MO, (multiple showings) 2017-2020
Curiouser and Curiouser Gallery, Kansas City, MO, 2018