I paint with a desire to explore humans and landscapes in a way of seeing a recognizable narrative, but with an ever-changing lens. Whether it is a suburban landscape, foreign landscape, vintage toys, swimming pools, or station wagons, my art hopes to resonate and elevate while finding some shared personal content for most. In 2017, I was lucky to get an international residency in remote northern Iceland. On Hrisey, a small island of less than 100 residents, 15 miles from the arctic circle, I was able to paint an entirely different landscape. The trees of the PNW could hold my interest in paint for decades, but here in rural Iceland, there are no trees. Enormous unbroken vistas of snow or volcanic moss with skies of huge clouds colliding on the horizon; with little clusters of brightly colored buildings related to pure survival architecture, all was new. To paint that landscape enabled me to use my painting vocabulary and pass it through a different lens. Now, I try and approach each painting as if I am seeing an entirely new different landscape within a familiar one. To interpret that unknown Icelandic landscape and have octogenarian native islanders from Hrisey talk to me about what resonated with them, was the real success of the residency for me. I hope all that see my work feel some association with it, no matter how foreign or familiar the subject is. I try and frame compositions in ways that people can walk or dive right into the painting. I’m not trying to paint an exact place or person, but an elevated, abstracted, or imagined one that is somehow known.