Since 2000, I have been doing only abstract paintings. Before that, I painted in both figurative and semi-abstract styles, and I've studied drawing and composition for a number of years. I've especially analyzed the compositions of masters such as Goya, to try to understand the organizational glue that holds the great paintings of the past together.
 
From 2004 to 2006, I worked on a long series exploring and reinterpreting Goya's black-and-white etchings, The Disasters of War, trying to duplicate their profound emotional impact by the use of color and composition alone, without their powerful narrative subject matter.

In 2007, I released all ties to figurative references and to other painters (at least consciously), and am working in pure color, movement, energy, and shape. I am sure that the impact of Goya's compositions remains with me, however, and I feel his compositional influence underlying even my most seemingly unstructured paintings.
 
Although I've studied with contemporary artists and immersed myself in the art of the past, my goal in painting is best expressed in William Faulkner's statement about his own goals in writing: "to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before."