My experience as an egg tempera artist has deeply influenced my painting style. The medium lends itself to highly detailed surfaces, using small brush strokes to build up forms. Cross-hatching is a substitute for the subtle tonal variations from dark to light that are customary in oil paintings. It gives the work a distinctive appearance, inviting viewers to linger over the multilayered surfaces that I refer to as “forms within forms.” I incorporate this mark making in my acrylic paintings as well.  

My paintings celebrate color, which has vibrational and associative qualities. Wisdom traditions have long understood the power of color to express the spiritual. For example, in the Buddhist/Hindu traditions, the body is divided into seven energy centers known as chakras. Each chakra is associated with a color: red for the root chakra, yellow for the solar plexus area, and so forth. Western medicine recognizes the healing properties of color on our bodies and emotions: the use of light boxes for depression; green paint in hospital rooms for calm. In recognition of the power of color, I typically bring forth one dominant color, with other colors playing a supportive role, allowing viewers to fully immerse themselves in the feeling of a color.