"Our time on this planet is brief. Seek joy. Life is a miracle and every life is precious."
Bernell Loeb
How does your work interact with the theme of “A Generous Kingdom V: Art that Explores Story, Symbolism, and Beyond”?
My paintings are single image stories often involving symbolic elements that have meaning beyond surface associations.
Does the idea of transformation influence your work and process?
Each of my pieces is the story of my personal journey. Whatever I’m grappling with in the moment often becomes a painted image.
What draws you to the medium you chose? And tell us a little about your process (I don’t believe in giving it all away).
While every medium presents unique challenges and opportunities for
expression, painting for me is an ancient alchemical process, a magical process of taking the simplest of materials – paint on cloth – and transforming them into images that have, hopefully, a psychic resonance.
What are the strengths of the medium? What are the challenges?
It’s a challenge to master the rigorous requirements of oil painting. Every step of the process from stretching the canvas to varnishing the finished work must be carefully done so that the piece lasts many lifetimes. That said, the strength of painting is that there are no limits on what your imagination can
conceive.
Who inspires you? And What do you do to get inspired?
Dreams.
If you could have coffee or tea with any artist who would you pick? What would you have coffee or tea? What would you ask that artist?
I would love to sit down with the two great Surrealist painters Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. Both of them lived through the Second World War, fled the Nazis and ended up in Mexico City where they made the most fantastical images. I’d like to know where their creative drive came from and what inspired them to make their singular work.
What do you hope your work achieves, in general, and/or specifically with this installation?
“Evening Explorer” is an allegory for our search for meaning represented by the white rose, a symbol of miraculous love at work in the world. Love and connection are what we are all searching for.
What recently made you smile?
The mesmerizing murmuration of thousands of starlings swirling above me in the darkening sky on Christmas Eve.
What recently made you cry?
The sadness of witnessing the pain, suffering and loss from this pandemic but I’ve also cried while witnessing the strength and courage of the front line workers who show up every day to battle this disease. We live in extraordinary times.
If you could tell your viewers one thing, what would you tell them?
Our time on this planet is brief. Seek joy. Life is a miracle and every life is precious.