Gazing through the mist I am moved beyond description at the beauty around me; the misty morning sky rising from calm    moving water. As the sun forces its way through the moisture laden atmosphere, the picture changes, yellows begin to invade the blues, purples and grays. The mist begins to lift and a new picture unfolds.

From the first time I painted the landscape I was both moved and challenged by trying to capture the overwhelming beauty before me. Learning to see, feel and express the environment on canvas. I studied the works of artists from the Cape Ann and Bucks County schools, and revisited the impressionists and the immediacy of my earlier non-objective paintings. This brought me to a point where the expression of the object, through light, began to create a spiritual connection with the landscape.

In the past, my painting was a means of expression, transferring my feelings into non-objective emotionally charged abstract imagery, adding layers upon layers of textures, materials, colors and shapes. Today my landscape painting is done exclusively on location. The connection I experience with nature and the challenge of getting it right is what brings me back time and again.

Born and raised in Brooklyn NY I lived throughout the borough until 1994 when I moved to Bergen County NJ. I studied drawing, painting and sculpture at Brooklyn College and graduated from Pratt Institute, Summa Cum Laude, with an MFA in painting. I am now a member of the Plein Air Painters of New Jersey, the Society of Plein Air Painters, The Blackwell Street Center for the Arts and The Lower Hudson Valley Plein Air Painters of New Jersey.  I have continued to paint throughout the years and have exhibited throughout the tri state area, including a show at the Brooklyn Museum.  I was recently selected to participate in "Paint the Town" a premier plein air event held in Cranford, NJ, as well as the North Bennington Plein Air Competition in North Bennington, VT. My painting "Last Snow" was just selected as a finalist in "The Artist's Magazine's" 28th annual competition.

I hold a NJ teaching certificate for Art, and have recently been working with local organizations in Bergen County area to further the arts. Along with The Jacobsen Landscape Design and Construction Company I helped host a music and arts festival and am presently teaching drawing and painting classes in their Midland Park Showroom.

As both my life and my painting evolve. I look for the important things and try to connect them to my feelings, expressing them as simply as possible.

"It doesn't matter how much or how little you put into a picture, as long as you make a clear statement and give the viewer a sense of your feelings toward a subject....... Learn to look for the essentials and you'll discover that both painting and life are simpler than most people suppose." ... Emile Gruppe'