Artistic Journey

What Inspires My Art Work

I enjoy the techniques of combining unrelated objects or ideas to create surprising and thought-provoking compositions, challenging viewers’ perceptions of reality.

With, my interest in environmental signage or other man-made objects found during my daily walks in Southern California, I begin by photographing various elements I want to see in my painting. I then begin composing my work by placing an object, usually a man-made object into the foreground. If the view of the object I want is not facing west, I will adjust by combining it with an exquisite sunset or beautiful background. The end result is a painting with the viewer looking to the west. Many times I believe that by using this creative process I am able to capture an image that is worth a second look and is more exciting. This current technique gives me the creative outlet to imagine a unique image that would be believable in nature. This technique is more challenging as the artist needs to understand the lighting produced by the background sunset for instance and how it will affect the foreground image to make it look more realistic and having it fit believably in the landscape.

 Indeed, I have a number of paintings where I was able to capture the image I wanted in one shot. I enjoy painting these scenes and I am proud of the results. But to me, it takes out fun of creating a composition and it can seem more like just duplicating. I want to play with the environment I am trying to render and make it my own.