Painting for me is primarily concerned with composition and form. The subject, though important and with its own history, is a way of beginning. Much of my interest is in the shapes created, the color relationships, the surface, the edges, the tension between flat and illusionistic space. I begin with a concept of a finished work but the painting becomes itself in the process of making. Though not preconceived, every part of a painting is considered in relation to the whole and all of the elements need to fit for the finished work to feel resolved and successful.