Like many young art students in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I was enthralled with the pop art movement of the time and much of my work is influenced by this style. I had the good fortune to study under Wayne Thiebaud and Jack Mendenhall while I was a graduate student at the California College of Arts and Crafts.
I’ve always been fascinated by Middle Eastern and Asian patterns as well as the arts and crafts patterns created by William Morris. So, I’ve incorporated these patterns – as foreground and background -- into my paintings for nearly two decades. My interest in these patterns has been augmented by my travels and living abroad including Japan, Spain, Iran, and India.
During the 1980s I was greatly influenced by certain elements of photorealism combined with pointillism.
As my work evolved in the 1990s, and as a result of living in Japan for seven years, I became fascinated with Asian, Arabian, and European patterns. My interest in koi fish as a painting motif stems from experiencing the Japanese koi and water lily culture. As an avid birdwatcher, I often use bird images in my work. Unfortunately, most of my work from that period remains in Japan in private collections.
In the late 1990s, I moved to France, Spain, and Italy where I completed a series of drawings and other works on paper and visited many great museums and architectural sites and ruins. These places and the artists whose works are represented in these locales influenced my work then and now.
I moved back to Tulsa in 2001 and have continued to explore the use of various patterns juxtaposed against realistically-rendered shapes such as koi, birds, and other figurative elements.
I have recently completed three figurative pieces with a superimposed William Morris pattern that feature images evoked by the Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro and Baroque Italian master Caravaggio.
