In my paintings I honor the landscape as both itself and a metaphor. Moun-tains become places of ascension, inwardness, and grace. Historically, in both spirituality and mythology, mountain imagery is seen as dark terrain, feral, deserted, holy, and stripped of self. Untamed and wild landscape, in all its apathy, elicits a primal pull to enter it, to be joined with it, and to know it intimately. Seeking the solace of empty places, I create intensely personal portraits of quiet, meditative spaces that encourage contemplation and investigation of self, sublimity, and the divine.