Artist Statement

Destruction of forests and regrowth are the themes embodied in my work. My paintings represent landscapes of trees that have been impacted in some way, such as aged or weathered-toppled trees, pine-beetle-infested trees, or trees that have been burnt by forest fires. To show hopefulness after devastation my paintings incorporate aspects of green vegetation. The brightness of the green grass growing back shows regrowth, but by also including the abundance of devastated trees in my work shows the process it takes for an area to completely start to regrow. We often take nature for granted and do not always stop to think about how much damage we are doing to our environment, without helping to protect or prevent some of these destructive occurrences from happening. By painting these scenes, I hope to make others more aware of what is going on and what is being lost in our environment. Since our environment is continuously changing it impacts forests in many ways, showing that more is happening than we are aware of. I paint from original reference photos of secluded places, within forests in Oregon, Colorado, and Idaho. Hiking deep into these areas to document the devastation that occurs can show that sometimes the damage goes far beyond what we can see from a distance. Documenting and painting from different areas shows that there are many devastations within forests happening all over and not in just one area. Although destructions occur in nature, regrowth will happen, maybe not quickly but we can always look forward to a new beginning.