My work can most readily be approached as allegories to the temporality of the natural world and how we very personally process and hold on to this multifarious experience. Time for me is always abstractly held in our emotional selves. Allegory is defined as a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms. It is this definition that best describes my painting and it's process. Natural History collections, 17th Century Dutch Still Life and the Pattern and Decoration Painters of the 70's have been my key inspirations for the past decade. At the outset, working with a specific list of images, objects, and ideas that I want in a piece, my densely layered evolve naturally out of this strict  written and  designed framework.    HJ