Few things reveal the inner life of artists more than where they choose to eat once they finally have a franc in their pockets. For the Impressionists, dining was never simply sustenance—it was strategy, camaraderie, theater, and the occasional act of defiance. Their restaurants tell the story of their rise: from noisy cafés of argument to polished dining rooms where turbot arrived under silver domes.

I’ve been thinking about eyesight lately, for obvious reasons. Cataract surgery is on my horizon, and as a painter, the prospect of altered vision feels both frightening and strangely fascinating. Artists have always made work with the bodies and eyes they have—sometimes diminished, sometimes distorted—and the art often bears witness to those changes.

Not everyone would expect that the first paintings I did after my experience at Giverny would be a series of boxing paintings, but it was. 

When I returned to the States I called Teddy Atlas and asked if I could watch him train his new fighters (this was after his break from Cus d’Amato as Mike Tyson’s trainer.) One of his fighters had a fight coming up in Atlantic City and he thought I should photograph that. . .

My paintings are about  light.

When I paint representationally and I am about the business of rendering light, I often choose a subject that is backlit. It seems to offer the most extensive and complex qualities of light - light on a surface, passing through a surface, reflecting off of a surface, often highlighting transparency, translucency, reflection, or glitter.

I was raised to think that art history evolved linearly - a straight line from Giotto to Pollock. I was not prepared for the halting, meandering movement of a career in art, where you race forward with one idea, re-track steps, add something new, abandon a direction and end up end up in the middle of a hi-way clover wondering which way to go.

EVERYTHING IS REAL is a group of paintings that are both abstract and representational. Each image in the series exists in the real world – an old board of insulation, an industrial garage door, a silo and corn crib, a track in the mud and wrapped cargo on pallets.

At the same time, each has been composed to accentuate the inherently abstract qualities of the reflective surfaces and their interplay with light.