The transient and fleeting aspects of our being contrast with the seeking of the transcendent and ineffable. Everything, whether splendid or common, changes and vanishes. Erosion, fracture, slippage, waste and toxins surround us and lie within us. They speak of the imperfection of our state of being. Clouds, mist, and smoke are temporary and eventually fade, as does life. Nonetheless, within our inner core the eternal stirs. The theme of vanitas shapes the conceptual basis of my work and finds its influence not only in painters of overarching Western abstract traditions, but also those of the abstract traditions of the Middle East and Japan.  Further, the Books of Job and Ecclesiastes, the Confessions of Augustine of Hippo, the writings of T.S. Elliot and Salvatore Quasimodo, all of whom reflect on the mystery of time and form, dialogue with what I seek to achieve visually. I desire my art to be troubling in that initially it reads as an aesthetic object of contemplation and then the tension kicks in with disruptions, breaks, glares and ambiguities. Often the materials and processes, as well as the forms I employ, are inherently incompatible and layered to act as metaphors for the ostensibly irreconcilable.  Similarly, I often destroy old works and reconstitute them as handmade paper from which new marks and configurations emerge