Sunset (silver maple), 2023. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 54 x 72"
Summer Crush, 2023. Oil on canvas, 28 x 44" (diptych)
Cissy's Garden, 2024. Oil, acrylic, and dye on canvas, 48 x 64"
Unless we close our eyes, we can't see where we used to be anywhere, 2024. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 64 x 48"
Windows, 2023. Oil on canvas, 24 x 20".
Janus, 2022. Oil on canvas, 73 x 54"
Coronarius, 2023. Oil on canvas, 72 x 54"
Like Life (Irises), 2024. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36". Pit II, 2024. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 24 x 20"
Mock Orange, 2025. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36"
”Yard Times” follows my shifting awareness within landscape to my backyard, a category of place with which I’ve has developed a new relationship during the Covid-19 pandemic. While global societies came as close to a truly shared experience during this public health crisis than ever before, most people’s physical worlds shrank considerably. Like many folks, I spent a lot of time at home over the last four years, and have come to appreciate how my backyard activities became a primary way to mark time and derive meaning in an era of pandemic, climate disaster, and political upheaval.
Thinking through cycles of the moon, pin oaks, an overgrown mock orange bush, and stuff on the ground, my attention has shifted to small subjects in my immediate environment that have taken on poetic or portentous qualities, creating a sort of ‘backyard mythology.’ As such, this series explores catastrophe and routine, particularly how people respond when catastrophe seems to become routine. The ritual backyard campfires my loved ones sit at have become a way to mark life happening between what seems an endlessly dire series of current events.