ARTIST STATEMENT

My work focuses on landscape imagery relating to rural communities.  It is a visual story about the places located in the middle of nowhere.  Agricultural spaces inform my art practice which usually, hopefully, ends with a painting that shows movement and color combinations that speak to the idea of the working or industrial landscape.  I also want the viewer to get a sense of the smallness of humanity and the largeness of the natural environment, particularly the open prairies and the solitary spaces we find in the Midwest.  It’s a point of view that I think is shared with many people who live outside of populated places.  Describing what that is exactly is both a personal account and a collective understanding of where we live.   

The idea of a landscape, and the stories that go with it, have always been something personal to me but what I’ve recently realized is that the places I paint aren’t really just mine.   They are definitely shared and are part of the conversation of rural community.

AWARDS

Career Grant
Southwest MN Arts Council
2019

Artist Initiative Grant
MN State Arts Board
2017

Career Grant
Southwest MN Arts Council
2015

New London Partner of the Year
SCOPE
2014

Individual Arts Grant
Southwest MN Arts Council
2013

Split Rock Arts Scholarship
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
2010

Emerging Artist Grant
Southwest Minnesota Arts Council
2008

Split Rock Arts Scholarship
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
2007