The seed was planted in my head at the tail end of my residency at The Banff Centre. I was having a studio visit with Rachel Bacon and we were talking about the differences between painting and drawing. With my background in watercolor I’ve always treated my paintings like drawings. The essays I love center around contemporary drawing and mark-making. I relate more to the language of graphite than that of oils. So she prompted me with a simple question… 

“Would you ever try this in black and white?”

Talk about a light bulb moment. That is exactly what I needed to do to push my work. I could see it in my head so clearly. Conceptually I can justify the shift. It made sense. Take the color out of it and let the marks sing.

With the start of 2018 I’ve entered this new phase excitedly. I started with some small canvas test, works on paper and now am in the middle of a large canvas piece. It's quite amazing to see these pieces come alive even with a reduced color pallet.