External

Most of the time I am most interested in painting and am greatly influenced by internal imagery, rather than the externals that surround me. Let's face facts, I don't live in the most visually inspiring place...the suburbs of what is by and large a utilitarian, unattractive city. In the summer it is green but grimy, and in the winter it is like landing on the moon, it can be so harsh that it becomes something adversarial, to escape, to shut out, the very antithesis of life and warmth and creativity. However what we see every day, our visual diet if you will, has a powerful effect on us. The prairie creeps into my paintings in golds and greens and long flat lines. And even the 'burbs are represented by the very fact that I do turn away into my own imagination for inspiration.
Many of my favourite paintings marry external with internal, so I want to put some thought and effort into opening my eyes, and trying to let what surrounds me in physical, tangible ways influence my artworks more. The above is pretty literal.

Welcome to my world.