My formal education took place at the University of Alberta (Canada), where I received a Bachelor of Design in 1995. The following year, I moved to Vancouver, BC, where I lived between the mountains and ocean. I hiked, sailed, and I undertook a practice of meditation. It was during this time that I began exploring the sense of the sacred I feel in natural settings. This is where I found inspiration to use painting as a means of drawing connections between the natural environment and our internal struggle to be in harmony with it. I travel extensively to photograph landscapes around the world. By applying paint onto my photographs I conceal and reveal areas with mixing impasto techniques with splatters and scrapes, often leaving just a small area of a photo remaining. These mixed media paintings blur the lines of realism and experience, photography and painting.
