About Watercolors

It is always the goal of an artist to push the boundaries -- and my Critical Watercolors series aims to do just that. In this series, capturing the beauty of the sea takes on a new vehicle of expression: watercolor.

The Critical Watercolors series emerged from a time of experimentation to capture visual texture and fluidity within a new medium. The extemporaneous process of applying a few flourishes on paper with water to spread organically into a story or feeling is a liberating experience. 

Watercolors are a new medium for me to develop my technique and express my visual language in a new and exciting way. This exploration of watercolor also helps inform my other painting adventures as I develop a richer understanding of depth and perspective.

The three series of the “Contours of the Earth” collection -- “After Sea Rise,” “Aridification,” and “The Big Thaw” -- were born out of my reverence for nature and my concern about the impact of climate change. Featuring vibrant fields of color, whirling movement, and flowing forms, “Contours of the Earth” depicts post-apocalyptic imagined shapes of various landscapes and bodies of water after the rise of sea levels, aridification, and melting glaciers.

The works in this series, like many paintings from the Color Field movement, are based on the concept that color can be the subject of a painting in and of itself, and that color can capture a feeling: in this case, the feeling that I experienced when I saw firsthand the way in which climate change was affecting eco-sensitive areas.

I chose to use watercolor as the medium of this collection because watercolor captures the acquiesce effects of water and allows the surface of the paper and other elements to dictate how the watercolor will emerge. Thus, this medium captures the philosophical spirit of the work.

In creating this collection, I strive to find a balance between poetry and realism that would inspire a call to action to help slow the effects of climate change.