My work is heavily influenced by the strain of expressionism that runs throughout Western art, culminating in the work of Van Gogh, Munch, the pre-and post-World War I German Expressionists and on up through the Abstract Expressionists of, especially, the New York and San Francisco schools, and on to the Neo-Expressionists of the 1970s and’80s.  Surrealism has also played a role in terms of methodology:  I take a brush, apply some painted marks to a canvas, see what happens, what suggests itself.  Then put on more paint.  Then the painting starts to tell me what it wants to become.

I am not so much concerned with style per se.  I see a fixed style as conducive to marketing but inimical to creative freedom.  I do have groups of paintings that “hang together” well stylistically--my abstract landscapes for example, which are well-represented on this site.  And I reject any narrative which privileges a later style over an earlier one.  It is true that through persistence and dedication, my aesthetic judgement and artistic skills have, over time, developed.  But this in no way correlates with the debunked narrative that artistic development means a linear progression of styles.  All of art history is open to artists.  We are free to mine any style we want.