I was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, a manufacturing town that prided itself on the production of shoes. As a kid I remember walking down the streets amongst the factory buildings, listening to the cacophony of sound as the machines stamped out the leather and the pungent stink rising from the tanning process.
In grade school, I did the first drawing that I can remember. It was a cat that looked more like an elephant, or maybe it was an elephant that looked like a cat. Regardless, it found its way on to the side of the refrigerator for a couple of months and the die was cast. An artist I was.
Being a regular at the local library, I found several books on drawing and read them with a vengeance. Progressing through school I continued to draw and refine my art skills.
After a four-year tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force, as a Russian linguist, I returned home to the North Shore of Boston and pursued an education in art at the Montserrat College of Visual Art.
Under the mentorship of Alfred Czerepak, a teacher at Montserrat, I started exhibiting my art in galleries in Rockport and Gloucester. Over the past 40 years I have been exhibiting in galleries throughout New England and New York.
In July of 2019 I moved to South Florida, north of Miami. I participated in a group show at the Artist Guild Gallery in Boca Raton in the spring of 2020. Then Covid-19 struck, and the art scene took a big hit and pretty much disappeared.
During the six years I lived in South Florida, I immersed myself in the study of Sumi-e, the traditional Japanese art of ink painting. I studied at the Murakami School, where I learned the discipline, restraint, and philosophy that define this centuries-old art form. Sumi-e taught me to value simplicity, balance, and the expressive power of a single brushstroke. Although my artistic journey has since evolved toward mixed media, the lessons I learned through Sumi-e continue to influence my work, encouraging me to trust the creative process, embrace spontaneity, and seek harmony in every composition.
Today, I create in the studio at Heritage Village in Southbury, Connecticut, where my work is centered on the exploration of mixed media. My paintings emphasize the creative process itself, expressing color, texture, and spatial composition through layers of acrylic paint, pastel, charcoal, spray paint, and a variety of recycled materials on canvas. Each work evolves through experimentation, allowing materials to interact in unexpected ways and reveal new visual relationships. Rather than beginning with a predetermined outcome, I embrace discovery, letting the process guide each painting toward its own unique conclusion.