Artist Statement
I am the director of The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art on the campus
of State Fair Community College in Sedalia, Missouri. My studio is a two-floor,
1871 building listed on the national registry, located in the historic downtown.
Sedalia, Missouri is in the center of the state, where the western prairie meets
the Ozark highlands. To the west is prairie, to the north is oak and hickory-covered
hills and the Missouri River. To the south is the Lake of the Ozarks and the Truman Lake.
This environment affords me an unending diversity of landscape. I paint on a regular basis,
travel internationally and use photos I've taken as sources for my works. I paint with
oils landscape vistas of horizons, clouds and bodies of water.
My paintings consist of two or more panels. One panel is landscape imagery.
The other adjacent panel is often an atmospheric void where vestiges of the
recognizable landscape are found.
I try to capture the mystical light found in natural atmospheric effects: the
haze in the distance on humid summer days, the overcast gloom of winter skies, the
softness of landscape bathed in fog, and the quieting mood of approaching darkness. My
intent is to create paintings imbued with meditative spiritual presence.
