The Place Where Shadows Live

I was walking down Chicago’s beautiful Oak Street in the mid-’70s when I chanced upon three white buildings separated only by the shadows that lay between them. Stunned by the profound place where those shadows lived, that moment became the muse for my art.

Since then, I’ve spent fifty years carving deeply through layered archival paper and powering through sheets of steel and bronze. My work is about turning positives into negatives and symbols into stories. My large-scale outdoor sculptures reply to the sun as it moves across the sky, while shadows walk softly across my framed, monochromatic indoor pieces.

Much of my sculpture explores our evolution as artists through the signs and symbols those early messengers left behind. These historic images tell our story in a way that words simply cannot. Other compositions reflect a hint of Art Deco or Art Nouveau, an appreciation of indigenous cultures, or the stark contradiction of black and white married with the magical properties of dichroic glass.

Collectors often describe my artwork as contemporary and abstract. Some find a flavor of the American Southwest; others make a connection to history and myth. They’re all correct. My portfolio ranges widely in style and execution, yet remains true to the layered shadow-building I discovered so many years ago.