In this residency, I would first like to create works of art that further my exploration of creating art that invites the viewer into my mind and creating a vision of the natural world which intrigues them with use of light and color. I want to create a large work that shows how the four primary elements of nature: earth, water, air and fire. These elements have helped humans and animals in countless ways, but have also had unfortunate negative impacts, such as landslides, tsunamis, hurricanes and wildfire natural disasters. I would like my painting to push the viewer to ask questions about the pull of the positive and the negative and to engage in understanding that, as much as we try to be in control of the elements, they can never be truly mastered.

Second, I would like to deepen my understanding of light and realism and how best to embody them in my work. I want to explore new ways to use light and techniques to bring the viewer even closer into the work. Finally, though it may be hard to do, I would like to explore the way my mind works to create art, which seems very different from artists who use interior visual imagery. By contrast, my mind is often a blank or black slate from which eventually emerges a vision of a world or subject that intrigues me, particularly nature and the constant duality in life, such as light and dark, and order and chaos. I would like to portray in some fashion what it is like to experience the initial blackness in my artist’s mind and perhaps the eventual emergence of a vision or pathway.