As painting and sketching come to me intuitively, I am at a loss when asked what defines my work.
I realized early on that art opened a door to a world of wonder, of magic; at least that's the impression I got from taking drawing classes at school and that feeling has never left me.
At the School of Fine Arts, Henri Gowa taught me the technique of colors, the hues and the combinations of colors as they were used by the painters of the Middle Ages. In my oil paintings I have followed his teachings and the resulting luminosity stems from the choice of colors applied with a palette knife on a traditionally prepared support (here gesso on Masonite).
Graphic art is also present in my work. I was fortunate to study under Frans Masereel, one of the greatest woodcut artists of the twentieth century. I embraced woodcut and engraving. In my black and white period, I experimented with and adapted woodcut techniques to ink drawing, which allows me to use larger surfaces and suggest colors through black and white surfaces. Each medium becomes a vehicle through which I express a spontaneity that combines traditionalism and realism. Independent of the subject matter or medium, technical mastery is at the heart of my work.
