My work is a response to landscape and the natural world that is vast in scale and inspires the imagination to contemplate our place in the world, what came before us, and what lies ahead. Every landscape reveals something of its history of use and tells a story of human activity. In my paintings, the viewer is taken out of the landscape and elevated to see the earth's surface from a bird's eye view to better understand our relationship to the natural world. This allows us to see our imprint on the earth's surface from a distance, as well as its grandeur.

I grew up in southern Oregon (Klamath Falls) then moved to eastern Oregon (Ontario) at age 7, where I lived until I left for college. Over the years, I've spent a lot of time in nature, hiking and biking in some of the most remote places I could find in central and eastern Oregon as well as Idaho and southern Utah. I've lived in Seattle since 1991, where I have been a professor of art at the University of Washington. Over time and with new technologies, humans have sought to control, transform, and exploit nature in ever-expanding ways. My paintings reference sites that are both visually compelling and charged with the implications of use, development, and ownership, but also allude to phenomena of the natural world.