From the time I was a child I wanted to be an artist. In high school I attended Saturday Classes at Moore College of Art (BFA 1975) in Philadelphia and won The Sarah Peters Scholarship award a merit scholarship. My junior year (1973) I attended Tyler School of Art in Rome Italy: my studies there had a profound long term effect on my work and began a lifelong relationship with Italy, it’s art and it’s people. In 1974, I was accepted with half scholarship to Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan Maine.
I attended Tyler School of Art,(MFA 1978) on partial scholarship with teaching assistantship, first year on Philadelphia campus and second again in Rome Italy campus deepening my relationship to Italy. Major: Painting and Printmaking. During this time, my painting was influenced by Roman wall paintings, in particular the Villa of Mysteries at Pompeii. I developed a series of works that employed semi-abstracted figures moving through a constructed but lyrical painting space.
Upon graduation I lived and worked in Philadelphia teaching part or full time and eventually achieved Tenure at Moore College my alma mater. I received a New Jersey Council on the Arts Grant for my work in 1991-2 and a Pollock-Krasner Award in 1995-6. I worked extensively on paper and in 1996-7 received an NEA Mid Atlantic Foundation for the Arts Grant Works on Paper . I moved to New York in 1989, teaching part time at Parsons School of Design.
I continued to travel to Italy purchasing a small home and worked in the ceramic factories of Deruta an experience that profoundly effected my work, leading to my mature work. I employed modular formats, reductive forms in black on white and repetative elements and adapted the use of the “spolvero” (meaning dust) to create works on paper (use of a pricked pounced stencil to transfer a drawing onto any surface). Themes that emerged in my work at this time are still present in my work: transformation through repetition, simplicity through complexity, expansion and contraction, the search for essential reductive form, structure as anchor for casual/chance effects, the primacy of process and the body’s relationship to the work.
I currently live and work between NY, St Louis and Italy. List of major shows and awards follow. My current work includes drawing, printmaking, sculpture and painting.
Abbreviated CV follows:
Residencies: 1995 Fondazione Marguerita Arp, Locarno Switzerland. 1996, Tel Aviv Artist’s Studios, 2002 Valparaiso Foundation for the Art, Mojacar Spain. 2004 Concrete Workshop, Samsoe Denmark. 2010 Babayon Culture House Cappiadocia Turkey
Awards:
Dieu Donne Papermill Workspace Grant 1999/2000, NEA Mid Atlantic Foundation for the Arts Grant Works on Paper 1996-97, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant 1995-96, New Jersey Council on the Arts Individual Artist's Grant 1991-92
Solo Shows:
1998 Constant Sculpture Gallery Ramat Gan Israel
2001 Gallery Joe and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
2002: Trebisonda Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Perugia Italy 2003: Galleria Vanna Cassati Bergamo Italy
2004: Kentler International Drawing Center Red Hook,Brooklyn
2005: Metaphor Contemporary Art Brooklyn NY, Gallery Joe Philadelphia PA, Wildwood Press St. Louis, IL Spazio Dinamico Pisa Italy
2007: Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art Ridgefield CT, Metaphor Contemporary Art Brooklyn NY
2010: Storefront Gallery Brooklyn NY
Permanent works: “Shimei-giku” MO Botanical Garden,granite sculpture, Japanese Garden inaugurated May 2010.
Select Collections: American Embassy Kazakhstan, The Fogg Museum
The British Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Phila-delphia Museum of Art,The Corcoran Gallery of Art.
