My work rejects the conventionality of typical representational paintings.

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I was the proverbial child who colored outside the lines, on purpose. Who made the sky pink and the house purple and the grass yellow, on purpose. I see the world now with that same childlike wonder and imagination.

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When I started painting, I thought realism and realistic color were what I was supposed to be doing. But that was deeply unsatisfying to me, even though I did make some lovely paintings. But painting a red barn with a blue sky and green grass is boring, and a cliché.

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I push those boundaries of expectations with playful, unconventional colors. I see the possibilities beyond the real landscape in front of my eyes. My paintings are representational in that you know what you’re seeing – a barn, a mountain, a moon, a creek. But HOW you’re seeing is what my work challenges.

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I didn’t realize until recently that my work is more challenging to the viewer than I realized. I see color and magic and wonder everywhere and my work plays with those ideas in representational rural landscapes, garden scenes, night scenes, and flowers. My work doesn’t fit in, isn’t easily labeled, and challenges the viewer’s very comfortable conception of reality, and that’s a glorious thing.

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What we need in this broken world is more play, more color, more unconventional approaches to conventional ideas. My work is a joyful resistance against the negativity we are immersed in, the cliched common, and the sad assumptions that this world must remain broken. My work resists the idea that we must stay inside the lines and shouts to the viewer, Come with me and see the magic and wonder, see beyond reality to the feeling of what is possible!