Motion Paintings

All the paintings on the page were made from direct observation of dancers moving in my studio.

The Landscape is

a series of dancers moving through time and space. Through the use of line and color, I depict upon the canvas the dance that I have always seen in nature. Nature and the land have always been my inspiration, and the threads from which my paintings are woven. The form, color, line, light and movement I see in wilderness speak to the child within me, empowering my creativity.

Our cultural landscape perception is replete with images that anthropomorphize nature; Snow White evaded grasping branches in the dark forest, Tolkein imagined walking and talking trees in the form of the Ents, again and again the forest is given movement and life through how we see it. Given the opportunity, the next time you are in the wilderness, stop and just look. Watch what the trees, shrubs, and undergrowth do. More likely then not, you will see them dancing. Breezes, winds, and air currents stir the leaves, branches and stems making the bending, sweeping, crooked forms interact together, not unlike a dance.

Seeing dancers in my studio surrounded by my paintings is an experience like none other. It is as if my paintings jump from the canvas into the room. The lines of the dancers connect and merge with the lines of the paintings, and at times I can not tell where one ends and the other begins. As the dancers react to the images of my work so too do I react to their dancing, creating paintings from this “landscape” of dancers in my studio, in essence making a concrete connection between the movements I have always seen in nature with actual physical human dancers.

To dance is to be free and uninhibited, like nature and childhood. When working, I leave my adult self behind, painting nature through the eyes of a child, capturing the magical and revealing that secret space where trees are dancers, circus performers, magicians and all things fantastical.