“The first thing I usually consider when composing a painting is the light: what is it doing, where does it fall, what does it mask? I am always attracted to very dramatic light effects, to the bright smash of light upon form that melts into a deep mysterious shadow. I tend to emphasize the shadows in my work as a way of unifying the painting, paring things down to the essentials.

My work has been influenced by the work of the early American Impressionist painters such as Edmund Tarbell and John Singer Sargent. Also some of the work of Edward Hopper and that wonderful quality of solitude his paintings evoke. In my series of pool hall paintings, I was drawn to the almost ‘Rembrandtesque’ light effects that one finds in the pool hall. Here you have some figures leaning into the bright light above the pool tables while others are just off in the shadows observing the scene. Composing these works was endlessly interesting.”