Growing up in rural Albion, Indiana, I developed an affinity for Nature long before pursuing art. My formative years were spent outdoors collecting sticks and stones, while pursuing small Midwestern creatures and insects with my cheesy butterfly net.
Uncertain of clear direction, I studied graphic design at the University of Saint Francis, until visiting a museum for the first time during an art history field trip. Stumbling into a gallery full of Hudson River School paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts, I was captivated by Frederick Church’s magnificent painting “Cotopaxi” (below). After this revelatory experience, I focused my education on drawing and painting, completing undergrad in 2017.
Influenced by historical American landscape painters such as Church, Heade and Wyeth, my desire to create naturalistic, luminous landscapes led me to NYC to study under Jacob Collins and Colleen Barry at the Grand Central Atelier (2019 - ). This experience has broadened my artistic interests, as I am now pursuing naturalism and luminism through landscape, still life and figurative work.
My ambition is to bridge the gaps between these genres, creating contemporary-themed narrative paintings in a classically refined way.
