Artist, Dimensional Art | Read Artist Bio
Artist Bio:
My education is ongoing as I challenge my eye and mind to evolve the way they perceive and relate. I gathered skills from an early age working with my father, a talented metal worker. Those skills combined with a yearning to draw out the overlooked beauty in a mundane material and I began creating sculpture.
As an artist, I apprenticed in a traditional way under Argentinean Master Sculptor Alberto Castagna. In true classic form, Alberto first taught me to “see”. He claimed that our eye is calibrated from birth for dimension, proportion, balance and relation by the human form. Regardless of composition, artwork produced by a trained eye will bear the qualities of beauty.
When skills are finally honed to the level of effortlessness, the artist then becomes a clear channel for the flow of creativity.
For years I worked by word of mouth, creating custom work for individuals and corporations. I now live and work in John Day, Oregon and show my work in galleries, museums and public places nationally.
Statement.
I believe it is the role of the artist to open the gap toward our highest evolution; to explore beyond known and mapped territories. This path is marked by intuition, inspiration and feeling. When moving in the abstract I exist in this realm, and hope the art I return with can help mark the way, to aim for the essence.
For the most part it is in the indefinable that my work is born – an effort to communicate passion, inspiration, rapture, restlessness. My canvas of steel introduces an entire universe of chance and coincidence. The process is unpredictable, allowing the idea or image I hold inside to releases itself in surprising ways, as a new expression of feeling. Only by releasing the mind does creativity flow through, coaxing the potential from the collaboration between chance and vision.
It is my hope that the work carries the viewer into the realm of possibility from which it was born.The image or effect on the steel is an intentional effort to draw out color and character hidden within. It is neither patina nor etching, but rather coaxing. I use similar techniques and agents as those used to patina and etch, but with methods gathered from endless hours of experimentation. Although I begin each piece with an inspiration, I like to believe that what is produced is more about discovering the natural expression within than imposing my will and ideas upon the work.
I endeavor to freeze the process at its peak, when the image merges with the inspiration I hold inside. Needless to say, every piece is completely original and could never be duplicated.
I then study the plate for next steps and tread diligently the path that will lead to the piece’s eventual completion.