Our World in 50-100 Years

What’s it going to look like… especially if we don’t get a grip on global warming? That’s how I start a new painting. 

I fantasize about what kind of places we will be living. Will we be living in houses suspended from balloons up in the sky where the air is clean? Will the oceans rise and put us underwater so we have to live under big glass domes and breath manufactured air? Will the fires of global warming decimate the forests so that our trees survive only in museums? Or, will we finally realize the importance of trees to our survival on this planet? 

I let my imagination run wild about the animals. How will they evolve? How will they adapt? Will animals hatch out of eggs? Will elephants merge with trees to survive in a hostile environment? Will animals evolve to become stewards of the planet, protecting nature from the virus that is mankind? 

Sure… a lot of my pictures are kind of outrageous. Humor plays a big part in many of my paintings. But it’s there to temper the message, to make it more palatable. The compositions and the renderings too… The pictures are painted with vibrant colors and dynamic compositions to be, not only meaningful but beautiful as well. My pictures are meant to hang on your walls and, maybe, spark your thoughts on an existential threat to our well being on this planet. 

I work in environmental themes, using surrealistic imagery, fantasy and humor to express my concerns about the threats of climate change and to illustrate the bumbling efforts of humanity to combat global warming. I’m a digital artist. I paint my pictures in the computer using powerful software, offering prints of my original compositions. That makes me a printmaker who uses digital technology for expression and reproduction.  

I wasn’t always a digital artist. My formal training is in conventional painting and printmaking having earned a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from the University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana) and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I gradually evolved into digital as I learned about the power of this evolving new medium. I love its potential for printmaking, allowing me to offer my pictures to you at affordable prices so that I can reach as many people as possible with my environmental themes. 

But the pictures, not the technique, are the stars of this show. I strive to make bold, painterly renderings using surrealistic imagery, fantasy and humor to comment on pressing environmental challenges.