Combining natural forms with hard-edged abstraction

Good with a Knife, 2009, acrylic and charcoal on birch panel.

After the representations of landscapes only elemental forms or their shadows were left, after the articulations of narrative, only the impression of something having taken place. There it is: a way to wrap my head around a body of work that is identifiably abstract, but freighted with a rich memory of natural forms. Increasingly, I am bushwhacking my way through the topography of formalized painting with a method that both builds color and texture and degrades the image through abrasion, stripping, and cancellation. Soiling my hands through a process of calculated erosion. Something else, too, to further complicate matters: textures and colors (most new for me) that suggest nature reclaiming its turf from an industrial landscape.