The origin of this body of work dates back to time spent in the west of Ireland, studying the landscape. Upon arriving, I was overwhelmed by the area’s vastness of the scale and constant shifting of light, and my artistic focus shifted dramatically.

Seemingly endless stone walls provided an integral part of the landscape, dividing field from field and field from road. Walls of ancient origin were left standing amid barren and rocky plateaus—sometimes no longer acting as borders or boundaries for anything. Some stood upright. Others rolled gently towards the earth. The ruined walls stood as remnants of human presence that once moved and stacked the rocks.

The sense of history contained in these walls caught my imagination and I found myself “building” walls in paint. The stacking of shapes and the laying of paint was a meditative process that resulted in imagery that acted as a metaphor for the walls, a contemplative moment that reflects on the traces of the past and the vestiges of history.

The marks became increasingly linear and the pictorial depth meant to represent the passing of time flattened. The forms became less literal and more and more organic in my work. Marks began to flow and meander in a manner meant to refer to natural elements: the flow of a stream; the growth of a branch; the pattern of a small organism.

The paintings are now more abstract and less uniform while retaining reference to their original inspiration. Formal issues are explored through unexpected color juxtapositions, repetition and transparency that retain a link to the natural world.