I’ve long been fascinated by themes of connection, relationship, and alienation between us and our environment. Since moving to the Capital Region of New York five years ago, this fascination has me riveted to the ancient, industrial, landscape along both sides of the Hudson river. I’ve spent a lot of time wandering around the places where the tangling fractals of nature intersect with the crumbling yet poignant geometry of ancient industry here. The “hidden city” of industrial ruins clasped in the trees along the Wynantskill and the Poestenkill, the abandoned facades towering over both sides of the Hudson, the stone foundations and rusting iron works along the kills, and the ways in which green- umber water, gray tangles of trees, red rust, grey stone, yellow and orange bricks intertwine and influence each other along the industrial, South Troy, Watervliet, Cohoes, and North Albany Waterfront.

I see this unique landscape as both a cautionary tale and a metaphor for healing. Centuries of industry have left an indelible mark upon the once pristine waterways, but the ways that the healing chaos of nature eventually overtakes the imposed order of industrial wounds are written in the rocks here. And in between the pristine, the broken, and the healed… the colors and textures and forms are beautiful in the present moment.

All of this seems to offer something of a creative new paradigm.  I’m not sure what it is yet, but you can feel it in the ruins.

So this is what I’ve been painting recently.

This collection of new abstracts, completed over the past year or two, is my love letter to this place, especially the South Troy Waterfront. The geometry, the fractals, the rust and the ruins. We and our fallen bricks are as much an integral part of the historical record here as the crows and their raucous canopy, the sea bass and their forest- colored waters. These paintings are born from my wanderings here; perception without judgment. It’s a work in progress right now, all the way to the opening night of an upcoming show, July 12, at Vocare.