My paintings are about  light.

When I paint representationally and I am about the business of rendering light, I often choose a subject that is backlit. It seems to offer the most extensive and complex qualities of light - light on a surface, passing through a surface, reflecting off of a surface, often highlighting transparency, translucency, reflection, or glitter.

Yes, I really am painting garbage. I didn't set out to paint garbage. I didn't wake up one morning and say painting garbage would be a good thing to do. Instead, while walking near a friend's house in Sasebo, Japan, I passed the recycling center. In it they were moving bales of recycled paper to prepare them for transport. The image of their surface was striking to me, like a Harnett trompe l'oeil painting, and the structure of the bales made me think of Don Judd's boxes.