As a kid, I enjoyed drawing, looking at art books and had an avid interest in music. By age seventeen I moved to New York City to become a punk rock musician. 

From 1986 to 1992 I was in the band True Detectives, who enjoyed a cult following throughout the northeast. After the break-up of the band, I attended the Art Students League and studied the art museums and galleries of New York. I also began my first serious attempts at painting. I spent three months in Europe, where I was able to frequent the great museums of London and Paris as well.

After my return from Europe I moved upstate and lived at Ganondagan with my father to learn about my Seneca Indian roots. While living there I studied art, Indian culture and gained a new perspective on my lifelong love of the outdoors. I began to appreciate the sacred geometry of Indian art and its influence on my own work increased. At Ganondagan I participated in native youth and elder camps where I met John Stokes, of the Tracking Project, whom I eventually moved to New Mexico to work for as an outdoor guide.

At the Tracking Project I travelled throughout New Mexico, Montana, Utah, and spent time in the pantanal and jungles of Brazil. My adventures and experiences with both the students and the outdoors had a profound impact. In 1999 after leaving the Tracking Project I moved to Taos, New Mexico to devote myself entirely to painting. 

THE INSPIRATION

The peace, solitude and beauty of Taos allowed for the influences of my life, both personal and artistic, to come together. The magic of northern New Mexico made real for me the colors I had only seen in my mind or in the works of artists whom I have always admired, like Vincent Van Gogh and Mark Rothko.

The work is about beauty, love, magic and mystery. The colors and movement are meant to allow the viewer to form their own meaning based on their own perspectives. Each color is mixed individually. Liquid pigment and mica are added to clear acrylic polymer to achieve the desired color, transparency and vibrancy of each angle, drip or stripe. Some strokes are made from interference mica that reflects a specific spectrum of light which shift the color as the viewer moves, or as the light changes.

THE WORK

Starting with a solid or liquid clear base, I add pigment and mica to create semi-transparent and translucent colors. Using gold, silver and pearl paints I create reflective surfaces that are then layered with semi-transparent colors. By applying these colors one-by-one in layers, I achieve a depth of light and brilliance of color that is not reachable with a single brush stroke. 

I use lines and patterns in the work to reflect the order and chaos in nature. I am inspired by patterns as the building blocks of life and the notion of sacred geometry as the order of our universe.

Ultimately the work is meant to be beautiful. It is meant to evoke a reverence for the beauty, magic and mystery of all things.