In my paintings, The paintings of bison and horses are pitched on the edge of abstraction so that they may be read as animal, abstraction, landscape or still life. Inspired by my travels on the Silk Routes in China, India, Central Asia and Southeast Asia where I researched Buddhist cave paintings and ancient art, my work explores the correspondences between totemic art and the contemporary imagination through thick, impasto surfaces of oil paint and encaustic.

In my large-scale Birds of the Silk Routes paintings, images of birds are juxtaposed with symbols, plants and pictographic marks within layers of strata-like paint. Inspired by illuminated manuscripts and ancient images of birds from a variety of cultures, the paintings suggest a natural ecosystem in which all life is interdependent and evoke the possibilities of the renewal of nature in a time of climate change.