The ebb and flow of my creative passion for both pigment and pixel has revealed a myriad of related interests that infiltrate my current work. I am particularly drawn to the way in which these antithetical mediums (paint vs. computer) require different modalities of "seeing" from the viewer (passive/active, macroscopic/microscopic, static/emerging, etc). Recently, I found myself perusing scientific texts describing the form and function of the eye. A book on electron microscopy held my gaze for hours. I analyzed photographs of collagen in retinal tissue, ganglia in the optic nerve, and capillaries in the vitreous body. I discovered that accomplished scientists cannot adequately explain how perception occurs at the molecular level. At that point, my proprioceptive sense took over. I watch myself when I work now, on the floor when I move pigment and wax and on the computer when I move pixels and light. I think about my skeletal muscles and my rods and cones. I imagine each individual cell processing information and performing the tasks initiated by me: looking, clicking, brushing, pointing, dragging, dropping, etc.

The personal iconography in my painting and computer work evolves from a deeply felt response to my environment. Forms reduced to their component parts---cells, pixels, atoms---breed in my imagination and thus invade my aesthetic sensibility. As my hands transcribe these mental proliferations, I am reminded that I am immersed in a world of words loaded with multiple meanings. Is it not ironic that the phoneme for the smallest unit of life shares the same name as ten other items, one being the rectangular space within the Score window of Macromedia Director 6.0.1TM?

Despite the vast differences between the artistic domains, morphic resonances abound in the iconography of the art constructed with both pixels and pigment. Many of my generative scribbles function as an atypical code. The repeated symbols thus function as an original alphabet which, when recombined in various ways, reveals a series of personal narratives. This process, the transubstantiation of life experience into original iconography, has captivated my attention. Currently, I am working on an electronic guidebook to the signs and symbols at work in my explorations of pigment and light.

I perceive these discrete spheres of interest, oil painting and digital imaging, as zones of creativity. The two mediums operate as spatial environments like the littoral zone where life remains in flux. In both arenas, forms collide, twist, mutate, interact and reproduce. Also, my preoccupation with the underlying structure of media, the elemental nature of life, and the lexical potentiality of the mark forms streams of information that flood the zones with additional data. The various intersections of these zones of creativity and their related tributaries has, and will continue to reveal a rich environment for me to explore as an artist.