Artist STATEMENT

I am a painter, teacher, and storyteller who believes that art is at its best when it belongs to everyone. My artistic practice has always been rooted in connection between people, between place and memory, and between what we make and how we care for one another.

I paint in oil and acrylic and often work large, creating vibrant, narrative scenes that explore belonging, identity, and the beauty found in everyday moments. My influences include Herzl Kashetski and Fred Harrison, whose work captures both the humanity and the honesty of community life. Like them, I am drawn to realism, but my realism aims to include a sense of warmth and wonder, a reminder that art can comfort as much as it can challenge.

 Since 2006, I have also carried these values into my classroom at St. Malachy’s Memorial High School in Saint John, New Brunswick, where I founded Paint It Forward, a student-driven art initiative that donates approximately 100 original paintings each year to underfunded public spaces such as soup kitchens, senior homes, libraries, and schools. Each piece is a gesture of kindness - a small, bright act of giving back.

Over the years, Paint It Forward has grown beyond a class project into a philosophy that guides much of my work. It represents what I value most in the visual arts: collaboration, learning through doing, and finding joy in creative play. When students paint side by side, learning techniques from one another, laughing, taking risks, they not only grow as artists but as citizens.

My own painting practice mirrors that same collaborative energy. I often work with students or community members to reimagine famous works of art, exploring how reinterpretation can connect generations and perspectives. My work aims to show that beauty can emerge anywhere  from a donated painting, in the hand of a beginner, or in the moment a viewer recognizes themselves in a brushstroke.

Ultimately, my body of work celebrates art as a bridge. It exists not only on canvas but in the relationships and pride that form when people create together. I believe deeply that art can transform public spaces, uplift spirits, and remind us that we share more in common than we think. My motivation for painting and in teaching is to help others see the world as something worth caring for, one brushstroke at a time.