The two large pieces on view, Arcadia and Gravediggers, were developed in my two-car garage studio in south Seattle in 2009 and 2010. I built the largest stretcher bar frames that could fit on my walls. Now, after living rolled up in my basement all these years, these sister paintings are finally being shown together for the very first time.

In classical literature and painting, Arcadia is synonymous with Paradise. It is the blissful, pastoral place of pleasure but it is also the stage upon which mortality is first discovered. It is simultaneously the site of fulfillment and of loss; it is the transition into this extraordinary event of human consciousness. Climb behind the curtain in Arcadia and enter the dark forest of Gravediggers.

The other works on view, also developed around this time, are visual stories of deconstruction, witnessing the creative act, divine intervention, and the porous boundaries between self and nature, and self and lover.

I use a fractured visual language to embody the process of breaking-down and re-building meaning. I think of shapes of color as notes on a keyboard, and painting is the act of arranging these elemental parts to reconstitute narratives that speak deeply of my experience.