In my early art years I followed in the footsteps of my parents as a watercolor painter. Unbelievably I even had my paintings in a gallery at age 18. I moved to Chicago in 1991 to attend SAIC, but watercolor painting was frowned upon and oil painting was considered the classic standard medium. Naturally, I turned to oil painting and learned my chops in technique.

Painting was instant gratification. I would work with rapid abstract brush strokes. I could crank out three new painting in a days work. As I was exposed to the multi-disciplinary offering of SAIC, I began to branch out wanting something more that I felt abstract painting did not achieve... meaning.

Conceptual art was highly prevalent in the art world of the 1990's, which crept into my art education. During each critique, we sought out the "meaning" of the work, attempting to find it in the layers of abstracted form. In the early 1990’s, you would often hear the mantra echo the halls of SAIC, "painting is dead".

Well painting is not dead! There is always room in the art world for great abstract painting, like the work of artist Elizabeth Schuppe. I love her eye for color!