ABOUT the ARTIST
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I first fell in love with Paris in the summer of 1984.
I arrived after a French language program in Angers with a backpack, a third-class student rail pass, very little money, and the sadness of a summer romance that had just ended. Yet the thought of Paris filled me with anticipation and wonder. I have never prayed more earnestly than I did upon entering Notre-Dame for the first time.
What I encountered was more than a city. Paris revealed a world larger, richer, and more beautiful than I had ever imagined possible. For this poor college kid, it offered a glimpse of who I might become and awakened a lifelong longing for art, culture, beauty, and possibility.
Over the past four decades, I have returned to Paris eleven times. Yet the truth is that while I always returned home, Paris never left me.
My paintings are not simply Parisian scenes. They are not records of architecture, monuments, or cafés. They are acts of gratitude toward a city that changed the course of my inner life.
Many of my works explore women, café culture, light, reflection, and fleeting moments of beauty.
Beneath these subjects lies a deeper thread: the feeling that first began for me in Paris in 1984. Certain places arrive not merely as destinations, but as revelations. Paris was such a place for me.
I often describe these paintings as homages. In truth, they are love letters. Through them, I celebrate not only the city itself, but also the generations of artists, writers, dreamers, and ordinary people whose lives and stories continue to inhabit its streets. Paris connects me to the world of the French Impressionists whom I have admired for decades, and to a spirit of joie de vivre that continues to inspire my work and my life.
I have been returning to Paris for more than forty years because I never quite recovered from my first encounter with the city. If you sense affection, nostalgia, gratitude, or wonder in my paintings, then perhaps you are feeling what Paris has given me all these years. My hope is that these works invite you to share, if only for a moment, in that enduring sense of discovery and delight.