Confinement Gardens Studio Interview

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This series of paintings expresses my experience of the Covid 19 pandemic lockdowns. In the spring of 2020 as the virus was surging in New York, and strict lockdown measures were in place, I sought relief from these restrictions by walking through the city’s public parks and gardens. Day after day, witnessing the powerful rebirth of nature and the emerging waves of blooming flowers offered me hope despite the pandemic, the losses and the uncertainty. Though I am an abstract painter, impressions of gardens appeared in my usually nonfigurative compositions, and I began combining floral and leaf forms with wholly abstract linear patterns.

I am fully aware of our deteriorating natural environment, and that cultivated gardens are an artifice, an "unnatural" space where plants, somewhat like the animals in our zoos are often among the last examples of their species to survive. I was nonetheless seeking a vision of hope during this dark time, and celebrated nature’s ongoing luxuriant beauty in these lush green paintings punctuated with colorful notes of imagined flowers.

Seeing these works, several viewers have recalled Medieval unicorn tapestries and Gustav Klimt’s dazzling paintings, both also created during dark times.

These works are painted in acrylic onto canvasses that I previously covered in aluminum leaf. Using the handle of my paintbrush, I then scrape horizontal lines across the still wet translucent paint, row upon row, to let the metal beneath shine through. After “plowing” this field of color, I “plant” my flowers.