I have always lived by the sea and I also spent 32 years as a fisheries enforcement officer in Nova Scotia looking at and

into the sea with its infinite subject matter. I am fascinated by how it impacts and transforms everything it encounters. My greatest joy is recreating its ever-changing dance of colour, light, reflection and refraction.

 

In my current work I explore moments where land and sea meet, the translucency of multi-coloured rocks alternately bathed and pounded by the shallow water and how light is reflected on and off them in a chaotic burst of colour, movement and power.

 

I consider myself an abstract (ab-trahere) painter. With as little detail as possible, I pull the image from nature by building up thin layers of paint until I am convinced I have included enough to represent that which I see in my mind's eye.

 

My works are oil on canvas. I do not use a palette. I apply raw colour and mix it directly on my canvas, working two or more areas that will eventually impact and create a connection with each other. My brush floats around the canvas until all the connections have been made and all parts of my painting are talking to one another - and together, they are communicating what I saw. That's when I know my painting is finished.

 

When I capture a particular space in time where sea and land coexist, something that is both fleeting and eternal and have you see it also, then I have achieved my goal.