Since coming from Cuba in 1961, Florida has been my home. I grew up under a vast Florida sky, amid the sugarcane fields planted in the black muck of Belle Glade. The wide open spaces of the everglades left a lasting impression on me and fostered a deep appreciation for the natural world and wilderness.
I graduated with a BFA in Painting and Drawing from Florida State University in 1978. I had the amazing opportunity to wor with Neil Welliver, the Great American landscape painter for many years.
I have lived along the Indian River Lagoon most of my life. I love the river. Living here, through years of rapid changes, I came to realize the importance of recording as much of this beloved landscape as honestly as I can. I paint specific places not a an impression but a lasting portraits.
Following in the great traditions of Cuban and American landscape painting my work seeks to unite the viewer with the subject, to experience through the paintings a connection to the environment. As climate change and development impacts the world around us it is my aim to preserve, even if only visually, an account of our landscape.
I paint primarily on site, starting the paintings in the field and finishing them in the studio from the sketches and photographs. The field painting are notes. I strive to create as sense of place. I am interested in accurate accounts of site, time and space as well as the poetry of the landscape. The paintings bring the viewer emotionally and cognitively into the scene, simultaneously recognizing the two dimensional quality of the work. They develop from random marks, laid on the canvas, layer upon layer, until the images solidify.
I paint wild places. As natural as I can find. Along the side of US1, the Sand Hills of the Atlantic Coastal Ridge, The Bahamas, Maine or anywhere i can go. I strive to capture the poetry of the place and to record for the future the few remaining wild places.