I am a contemporary painter who grew up on the Canadian prairies and now lives and works in Portland, Oregon. I create emotive, expressive abstract works inspired by memories of landscapes and weather — the vast plains of Manitoba, the lush forests of North Carolina, and the moody drama of the Pacific Northwest. My paintings explore the connection between nature and emotion, and nature as a refuge.    

I hold a Bachelor of Arts and an MBA, and I am a self-taught artist.  I have spent over 20 years painting at night and on weekends while working as an HR executive before recently leaving that career to paint full-time. I've since attended artist residencies in France and New Mexico. My work has been exhibited throughout the Portland area and is held in private collections across the country and abroad. I work out of NW Marine Artworks, an industrial studio building in Portland shared with a community of working artists.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I create bold and emotive abstract paintings.

I paint to find out what I'm actually feeling — to understand what's going on underneath, usually more than I realized was there. My work is intuitive and expressive, built through layers of color, texture, and mark-making. It's not about creating a perfect image, but about uncovering something honest and raw.

I want people to feel my paintings more than just look at them — to connect with a mood, an experience, a deep feeling that reveals itself the longer you look. There's always a tension in my work — between chaos and calm, control and letting go. I'm often trying to quiet the noise, but I've come to see the struggle and turmoil as an integral part of the story.

Nature is my refuge. When I slow down and pay attention to the natural world — the way things grow, shift, and interact — it opens something in me. It reminds me that beauty is often messy, layered, and not always easy to explain. I hope my paintings offer that same refuge: a place to notice details and shifts you might have missed at first, to slow down the way nature asks us to slow down.

Color, gesture, and layering are my tools for translating emotion into form. I work primarily in acrylic, often intuitively, allowing the painting to guide me as much as I guide it. Marks are made, obscured, and remade, echoing elements of nature — tangled lines, soft edges, open space — because I see us as part of it, not separate from it. Painting, for me, is how I return to that refuge again and again — a way to express my own individuality while exploring a deeper connection to the earth, to others, and to something larger than myself.