Natural Formations

I am a multi-media visual and performance artist. The themes I work with include minor obsessions, the bizarre landscape, self-realization, and social justice. I often integrate storytelling into my work through text and spoken word. I hold a BFA in Painting and an MFA in Performance Art, both from Arizona State University.

I have had solo exhibitions throughout the U.S. including at The Cultural Center of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Glazer Children’s Museum in Tampa, Florida. My first solo exhibition, “The Middle of Nowhere”, which consists of 32 B&W photographic prints depicting primarily arctic landscapes, toured 7 U.S. exhibition venues and was then acquired in its entirety by the permanent collection of the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, California. My follow-up exhibition “Floating Blue”, which features arctic icebergs photographed during the late evening light sometimes called “The Blue Hour”, debuted at the 10th Annual Songzhuang Art Festival at the Czech China Contemporary Museum in Beijing, China, in the fall of 2017, and toured 16 U.S. cities through 2023.

In the summer of 2021, in conjunction with the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, The Cultural Center of Cape Cod invited me to create and exhibit a short film titled “A Final Elegant Gesture” that reflects on that day from my street-level vantage point beneath the Twin Towers, and the unusual and beautiful ramifications that ensued through recurring and evolving dreams over the months that followed. The film later won Best International Experimental Short Film at the Dreamers of Dreams Film Festival, London, England.

In the fall of 2021, The Oakland International Film Festival, Oakland, California, premiered my short film, “Out My Window”, which explores in a unique and beautiful way some of the ramifications that ensued as a result of the protests and uprising following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. The film was also included in the North Dakota Human Rights Film Festival where it screened at the historic Fargo Theatre in Fargo, North Dakota, and then later won Best Monologue Film in the Monologues & Poetry International Film Fest, Vallejo, CA.

I am currently promoting my new solo film and performance exhibition “Tales of Terrible Beauty”.

I live in New York City.

As an aerial photographer piloting my own small airplane throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region, I seek to create the impressions of paintings from the altered landscapes of coal mining and quarried areas, as well as the natural, primitive beauty of the lower Eastern Shore coastal zones. Often in these places I find anthropomorphic figures and spiritual symbols and imagery which inform the narratives of my photographs. My aerial photographs came to embody what I termed “Third Spaces”, between the abstract and the representational, and which was the title of my solo exhibition at the Creative Alliance.

In 2023 I discovered the island of Cuba and began making underwater photographs while snorkeling and scuba diving. The undersea realms hold a fantastic visual world of shapes, forms and textures which are both similar to and extraordinarily different to the terrestrial world. I have returned to Cuba many times to explore and learn about the coral reefs and marine life. As the language of my experiences in Cuba is Spanish, I use the term “fotografía submarina” to define my work, and have exhibited them as a series entitled “Coral Gardens of Cuba”.

In both my aerial and underwater photography I approach my subjects primarily as an artist. But my work has also become a process of research about the history, culture, geography and environmental issues of the Pennsylvania Coal Region, as well as the beauty and diversity of coral reef ecosystems, and the importance of their preservation.