The Swimmer

My works are a depiction of a spiritual relationship with the natural environment. I am drawn to the energy, light, color, materiality, surfaces, and compilations of complex forms found in the spaces where man-made structures collide with natural areas. Childhood memories of Michigan wetlands and forests play into my personal creative language, but I also respond to the mixed urban and natural landscape of Berlin. Piles of bones, discarded building materials, and even the energy of strong weather can appear in my works. I aim to capture a relationship with nature that is charged with the playful flux and flow of creation and destruction. I am an intuitive artist who freely explores the painting process. In this recent large-scale work, “Swimmer” (2019), an abstracted skeletal figure in the upper left of the canvas is caught in a tidal wave of bright blue water and debris. The architectonic aspects of this painting bring to mind the harder-edged shapes of building materials; these forms, too, are being shattered by the water. The great shifting forces of nature can be epic and overwhelming; this “swimmer” becomes a symbol of fragility in the environment. The Swimmer (2019) 180 x 150 cm (71 x 57 in.) Acrylic, pigment, and mixed media on linen   Photo: Eric Tschernow