I love my small town streets, the fading facades and how sunset lights up shop windows, redirecting shadows and illuminating hidden passages. I love the forest and mountains that lurk beyond our backyards, sheltering a multitude of lives and mysteries, and I love the ocean at my feet, with its ever-changing moods and colours. With my paintings, I try to explode these sensations of wonder, beyond representation of the actual thing or place. I bring in graphic devices that flip the perspective from day into night or from above to below, and use the delineation between shapes to frame views of possible, simultaneous realities. I draw from a growing roster of symbolic shapes to add explanation and narrative to these exploded views. Triangles can represent trees or tents. Bottle shapes imitate towers or smokestacks. Anthropomorphized forms represent feelings or community, returning the gaze of the viewer.