The Wild Oak Painting

Growing up in New York City, I was surrounded by great art from an early age. Wandering through museums and galleries as a child, I developed a love for art with depth, character, and beauty. As a teenager I was accepted into The High School of Art and Design, one of several specialized high schools in NYC that focused on the arts, where I studied both traditional and contemporary art. Moving to California, I continued my studies in college, with a focus on abstract art, and I received both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Fine Art. After years of studying both abstract painting and representational art, I was still searching for more. I eventually found an American Impressionist painter, Henry Hensche, who studied in the lineage of Charles Hawthorne, William Merritt Chase, and Claude Monet. For many years, an in-depth study with this master painter helped me uncover the deeper secrets about light and color that I was searching for. I began to see and paint how light affects color creating form, atmosphere, and distance. This approach to painting was based on visual receptivity to light and color. For me, it was about clarity and honesty. Using oil paint on panels, I became enthralled with capturing the qualities of light. Over the years my work has evolved. I’ve been influenced by eastern and western aesthetics, abstract art, and impressionism. Today my paintings are a culmination of years of study and experience. What I’ve learned is a language of art, and now I’m speaking it in a way that is unique to me. My paintings have been shown in galleries and museum exhibitions across the United States, including New York City, San Francisco, Napa Valley, Sacramento, Seattle, and Santa Fe. My work is held in private collections throughout the world, including Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento, California; the Medical Center of the University of California, Davis; and the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group in Sacramento. Currently, I’m a member of the California Art Club and the American Impressionist Society. Both have annual regional and national juried exhibitions that I participate in. I am the author of Capturing Radiant Light and Color in Oils and Soft Pastels, (North Light Books, 2007). In 1986 I founded The School of Light & Color in Fair Oaks, California. Since then, I have lectured and taught at over 100 art schools, museums, universities, and art associations.