When I look back on my life to trace my artistic journey, I usually begin in the early 1980s when I was in my mid-twenties and working as a layout/design artist for a local newspaper in the Chicago suburbs. On break one day, in the lunch room, I came across a TIME Magazine that had a review of a new series of paintings by artist Willem de Kooning; an artist I had never heard of before, but whose works immediately attracted and intrigued me. These works, that were eventually to be known as de Kooning’s “later works”, were composed of simple lines of mostly primary colors that could take unexpected twists and turns. What was it, I found myself wondering, that could make such seemingly simple lines and colors so compelling to look at? This is a question that has continued to interest me throughout the years and is where I mostly locate the beginning of my journey as both an artist and an art lover. Not only was I soon subscribing to many art magazines and dragging friends and family down to the thriving Chicago art district at the time (located between Superior and Huron streets and given the nickname “The SuHu District” in a nod to the then well-known Soho art district in New York City), I also soon began making my own art, initially in pastels, then in acrylic and finally (for the past twenty years) almost solely in charcoal and graphite on paper.
