I have always loved to write and talk. The flow of words that magically self-organize and trace out (my) thoughts and emotions. Over the last few years I resort to writing as much as I do artwork for self-expression. I read recently in an essay by David Foster Wallace that the urge to write is a way of confirming our existence. To paraphrase… “I write, therefore I am”. I can extend that idea to art-making as well. I write, draw and paint to see and more clearly understand my inner life. I assume others do the same.

Perhaps we all construct and create consciously or unconsciously in order to leave our unique trail in the world; to reach out and make connections with others and the world we all occupy; to confront uncertainty and to share insight and exuberance; to feel less alone, more alive and substantial.

Along with reaching out and touching the world around me, I want to gather the world into myself. I express artistically the intricate biological world that sustains me. I also love the built world and the ingenuity and aesthetic human desires it reflects. The ugliness of human endeavour is at the same time obvious as we commit travesties against each other and the environment. I try to accept that I am not only an observer, but also the enemy.

I want to bring the outside in. I want my environment to be an intrinsic part of my internal world rather than feeling like a separate, spinning mental construction. I long to be firmly anchored in the world from which I was born and to which I will ultimately return. I embody not only the living processes of the moment but also my evolutionary past and genetic future. I want to recognize these things in every moment that I am alive

So in these ways art, whether written, drawn or rendered in colour and texture, is to make the world and my place in it more accessible. To experience the beauty and pain or even the monotony of life as it is being lived.