Oils & Acrylics
I have painted in oil since childhood. Even so, I have always found it difficult to talk about my art. Perhaps it is because making art is so much a part of me. It is not something I talk about, it is something I do. When I am not working, I feel anxious and unhealthy.
The source of my inspiration has always been and continues to be the natural world, its light and its color. The image I have always been especially inspired by has been the tree. From childhood on, I have had an ever deepening affinity for trees. As with my intense sense of the tree in Sartre’s “Nausea”, the physicality of trees is extremely palpable to me and I am at once excited and quieted by their human-like and, at times, animal-like presence. They also have a certain spirituality that resonates within me. Recently, I have begun to focus on creating a sense of time and place, trying to (re)capture moments I have experienced in the past, as well as in the present. Although these memories involve many images, the image of the tree, in a variety of forms, continues to be in much of my work.
In addition to being a painter, I am also a printmaker and an art educator. For many years I had the joyful experience of teaching art in the Islip Public Schools in Islip, NY and also, as a professor of art education at Dowling College in Oakdale, NY. I grew up in Philadelphia, PA and I am a long time resident of Sayville, NY.
I studied at The Philadelphia Museum School of Art (which has become The Philadelphia University of the Arts) and The Cleveland Institute of Art. I received my Bachelor of Arts from Hofstra University and my Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies from SUNY at Stony Brook. I have studied in Europe and have attended Master Classes at LI University, Southampton Campus. I exhibit nationally and internationally. My work is included in numerous private and public collections.
Author and art critic, Helen A.Harrison has called my painting “exhuberant” and “alive with color and movement.” Artist and art critic, Eric Ernst, has written about my “creative use of color” and the expressiveness and “elegant coloration” of my prints.
