It began with a Goddess. At sixteen years old, I became fascinated with a National Geographic clipping of Venus de Milo. Researching the sculpture led to the discovery of a wondrous world of art from a time period that I had previously known little about. Needless to say, my romantic self became smitten with classical based art and subject matter. I found myself drawn to the romantic and tragic mythologies and historic accounts of the Greeks and Romans. I began to incorporate classical subject matter into my artwork, and my paintings soon became dominated by the figure as a subject.

While attending the University of British Columbia Okanagan to obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree, I was encouraged to produce abstract and conceptual artwork. I struggled with the conflicting desire to please my professors and to remain loyal to the type of artwork that I felt passionate about producing. I focused on learning different techniques and mediums such as graphic design, installation sculpture, and abstract representation. I attended the University of Victoria and obtained a Teaching Certificate, after which I took a contract in London, England, teaching Secondary School Visual Arts.

Life in London began to rekindle my spark of creativity. I was continuously surrounded by aesthetically beautiful masterpieces, from paintings and sculptures, to architectural structures. Seeing live the works of master artists, such as Delacriox, da Vinci and Michelangelo, empowered my passion to create the artwork that I loved.

I returned to Canada with the desire to establish myself as the type of artist that I chose to be. I returned to painting in acrylics on canvas, concentrating on portraiture and the personification of allegories. As my study of historical artists continued, I began to reference Pre-Raphaelite subject matter. My paintings took on a more narrative, illustrative display of the figure based on classical literature of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alfred Noyes, and William Shakespeare. I became involved in the Society of Creative Anachronism, which allowed for a range of models appropriate to the historic timeframes that I chose to depict.

I also began to appreciate the beauty of images of architecture that I had collected in England, Scotland, France and Spain. Along with my ever-loved figurative and portrait paintings, I began to paint the stylized architecture as an expression of classicism. True to my idealistic portrayal of the figure and the natural world, my portrayal of architecture remained stylized and illustrative, experimenting with the use of line and selective solid blacks to accentuate the image.

There is something to be said about the great Masters of times past. They are remembered and admired for the beauty and awe that their works continue to bestow upon its viewers, hundreds of years later. I intend for my artwork to pay tribute to these creations that have touched my life, empowering myself as a willful individual, and a hopeless romantic....