The In Memory series utilizes layered imagery to depict the reconstruction of memory fragments from different time periods of one place. Representational images are nestled as a series of gradually fading memories, from recent moments of clarity to more ambiguous, darkened, forgotten images. This reflection of time portrays the largest ripples of long ago fading into the darkness while the urgency of the newly formed memories remains clearest.

The Seeds series explores the relationships between landscape, architecture, agriculture, horticulture, and other aspects of industry that affect native plant and animal life. References to these subjects are integrated into the surface of the paintings as dimensional collage elements. The process of encaustic painting allows a multilayered method of investigating these themes, using a combination of beeswax and resin to suspend and preserve fading life forms. In the encaustic medium, I embed fallen branches, stray seed pods, remains of insects, and other organic materials. The delicate and translucent nature of encaustic provides a natural substrate to showcase the fragility of these subjects in their various stages of life.

These four works, bridging the Trees series and the Seeds series, were commissioned by NTD Architecture and installed as a quadtych in the Main Lobby of Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, Arizona.

In the Wildfire series, unified landscape views are divided into separate translucent sections through differentiated color assignments. These divisions represent various stages in an ongoing wildfire event, such as successive moments in the advancement of a large wildfire that can jump from treetop to treetop in seconds, continue to consume and burn for weeks or months, with the destruction ultimately succeeded by regrowth. 

There is an irony inherent in our destruction and displacement of indigenous species with our attempts to wield control over biosystems that have inspired our own development. It calls to our collective conscious to remember to revere that which we regard as unique and worthy of replication.

The Trees series explores the relationships between landscape, architecture, agriculture, horticulture and other aspects of industry that affect native plant life. References to these subjects are integrated into the surface of the paintings as dimensional collage elements. Branches, reeds, seeds and other raw plant materials as well as processed food items are embedded into a wax medium to showcase their fragility in various stages of life, from embryos to post-harvest products processed for mass consumption. Copper, metal wire and mesh underlying and surrounding the paintings suggest a mechanical / industrial presence infiltrating and isolating the natural ecosystem.

As I began to develop my own gardens, issues of garden design, landscape architecture and relationships between plant life and human constructions became more important in my imagery. As this series progressed, the angular wooden and paper forms resembling buildings and architectural rubble became subordinate to the natural forms of stems and branches, similar to the way in which plant life "reclaims" the earth around ruins and decaying structures.

The Paperscape series drew inspiration from the incorporation of organic forms into the geometry of contemporary architecture, and the variations in depth and scale of multi-layered landscapes, cityscapes and archaeological sites. Tabletop still lifes of origami forms evolved into more complex arrangements of paper shapes and boxes that lent an architectural quality, suggesting a reference to larger structures and deeper space. A shifting sense of depth and scale was created by portraying very small objects with a manipulated viewpoint and perspective to achieve a more exaggerated depth, simulating landscapes and cityscapes.