Artist Statement

My current work finds itself at the confluence of two different artistic trends--the individualistic mark making of the Abstract Expressionists¹ and the mass culture aesthetic of Pop Art². Between these two ways of working, the forms hover and struggle. They never quite reach the full-blown cartoon nor the beating heart but remain forever a visceral abstraction reaching towards those ends.

The work has its roots in the fantastic, finding parallels in the work of Hieronymus Bosch³ (my father had a print of the Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch in his study when I was growing up) and James Ensor⁴ (a Belgian, like my father).

Other influences include graffiti, illustrations of human organs, 19th Century prints of flora and fauna and the work of the Dutch school of still life painting⁵.

1.Abstract Expressionism was an art movement that began in New York in the 1930's but didn't start to be recognized until the mid 40's. It encompassed a variety of styles but with commonalities such as way of working, scale and improvisation. The critic Robert Coates coined the term in 1936.

2.Pop Art is an artistic movement that emerged in the mid 1950's in Britain and in parallel in the late 1950's in the United States. The term was used by British art critic/curator, Lawrence Alloway. Pop art is one of the major art movements of the twentieth century, which is characterized by themes and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising and comic books.

3.Hieronymus Bosch (ca.1450-1516) was a Netherlandish painter of fantastical imagery mixing the spiritual with the bawdy.

4.James Ensor (1860-1949) was a Belgian painter who combined realism with the symbolic, allegorical and fantastical in his work. His palate was bright and even garish at times, but worked well with the subject matter he dealt with.

5.Dutch Still life painting came to its zenith in the 1600's with depictions of overflowing tables full of game and produce.