About

Artist Statement – Radical Naturalism
My work emerges from a lifelong immersion in the wild, contemplative spaces of the Southeastern United States—journeys into the pine forests, delta cotton lands, moss-draped oaks, and ancient waterways of Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas. Through large-scale oil and acrylic paintings, mixed-media works on paper, printmaking, photography, experimental video, and writing, I explore the entangled relationships between humanity and the natural world: place, memory, adaptation, decay, and persistence.
At the core of my practice is Radical Naturalism—a philosophical, artistic, and ethical stance I have articulated and defended for over thirteen years. Radical Naturalism demands an aggressive, all-encompassing approach to studying and observing the natural world, relying on empirical evidence and direct experience rather than ancient superstitions or transcendental illusions. Nature is not elsewhere; we are fully implicated in it—biologically, ecologically, historically. The “radical” insists on roots: causes over appearances, material conditions over ideals, structures over symbols.
This is not passive nostalgia or pastoral escape. It is a refusal—of supernatural hierarchies, metaphysical comfort, and cultural denial of consequences. Wonder resides not beyond nature, but within its complexity, interdependence, and raw truth. My series—from Healing Palms and Feast of Flowers to Feral and beyond—probe human impacts on ecosystems, from feral cattle and abandoned bison to invasive species and lost rivers, igniting curiosity and urging deeper connection.
In an era of ecological crisis, Radical Naturalism serves as protest and affirmation: art as material truth, observation as responsibility. I continue this dialogue from my studios in Florida and North Carolina, committed to relocating awe in the real, the rooted, the resilient.