I start with gestural marks — lines that curve, divide, and cut the canvas into shapes. Color fields go down over that framework, and then the line work comes back, responding to what the color has just made. Each layer answers the one beneath it. Some passages recede, others get pulled forward, and sometimes I take a section away to find what was underneath.

What I'm after is depth. Lighter areas opening against darker ones, translucent planes overlapping, so the surface holds more than a single pass can take in. I want a painting that stops you from across the room and then keeps opening up as you get closer, showing how it was made. The line and structure come from the architecture. The painterly passages run against them, and what I keep chasing is both at once — not one resolving into the other.

I keep trying new materials because each one solves something differently. Oil stick makes a painted line — drawing and painting at once — which is one answer to the problem of a mark that's both gestural and precise. Cold wax medium, paint drips, sewn canvas, and lately translucent papers and fabrics stitched into the surface all came from the same searching. Each one gets me closer to something I haven't fully figured out yet, which is what keeps me coming back.