I am serious about games. They have been important to me since my childhood. Games represent both rigor and pleasure. They help players sharpen their focus, improve patience, enhance critical thinking, and gain organizational skills. The exploration of games in my work—chess, go, backgammon, checkers, poker—constitutes my artistic practice in this virtual gallery. My paintings employ acrylic paint and mixed media and use bold colors, abstracted shapes, and impasto to mediate the relationship between abstraction and figuration, between the paint itself and the often-hidden game elements. I use large scale canvases, like abstract landscapes, to invite the viewer into the world of the painting and of the games. My works often start with a grid, the modernist template, which underlies the abstracted forms, creating a “home” for my games and the hidden elements of my paintings. Both art and games can function as an escape, as they once did for me. These are the some of the concepts I address in my art.

My art is also interactive. A viewer can move pieces around on the canvas, and by moving those pieces, can find hidden symbols, numbers, and letters and it can also change the nature of the painting itself. In this regard, my art is performative. I want to bring that interaction to my viewers. My painting can be an opportunity to learn. While viewers do not have to know how to play the games to appreciate my art, knowing about them, learning about them, enhances the experience. They are an intellectual exercise; they employ abstract thinking, time, risk. Games, like painting for me, can be addictive. I think of the experience of my art as falling down the proverbial rabbit hole—you never know what you will experience or where you will come out. Come, will you follow me?