Reverie is Not the Same as ‘Doing Nothing’
Statement
Children daydreaming is often considered a discourteous distraction from lessons in school. In contrast, I was taught by my college painting professor to disregard that notion, proclaiming “It is an artist’s job to daydream!” This encouraged me to go deeper into the type of art I love — that kind that lulls me into reverie. The paintings of Bonnard, for example, allow me to wander at random into a place between mind and sky.

My invented landscapes focus on everyday escapism.  As a California native, I grew up outdoors, inherently drawn to nature. My paintings are rooted in hazy memories and depict a world that honors nature’s beauty and provides a momentary respite from an ever-changing, chaotic world. Recent heavy rains, wildfires and landslides in my California hometown brought the dangerous impacts of global warming directly to my doorstep. I want to emphasize the vulnerability of the land within my work.

These paintings prioritize imagination over a highly rendered style, using a combination of memory, real terrain and fragments from the digital world to create landscapes that exist somewhere between the familiar and the unpredictable. The result is a painting with credible space that evokes reverie and celebrates our relationship with nature.

At times, a human presence is felt but not seen in the paintings. Man-made objects of kites, fences, and stairs are evidence that someone has been there or perhaps daydreams of being there. The work is steeped in suggestion and invites the viewer to create a story from their feelings or memories—finding their own necessary ‘discourteous distraction’ in everyday escapism.