Maybe a passion for art is hereditary. In my case I think that is true. At a very young age my grandmother began telling me stories about her grandfather, a famous artist from Paris. These stories began to shape an early passion for art.
As an adult I studied graphic design at Art Center and for 30 years worked in the advertising field. In 2008, I began experimenting with photographic lenses that would allow me to combine the aesthetics of my painting style with the immediacy of a photograph.
“Prelude to a Story” Portfolio
I began researching the work of Edward Hopper after many described my “Prelude to a Story” portfolio as resembling an Edward Hopper painting. The “feeling” was similar because the images evoke a distanced perspective on the world and each as an element of silence – much like Hoppers. In their extreme simplification these impressionistic photographs are dreamlike, time-arrested images that feel like silent narratives. Hopper described his own work as an emulation of the Impressionists.
I also discovered a fascinating historical link between Edward Hopper and me. I learned that Hopper was friends with Winslow Homer, and that Winslow Homer knew my great-grandfather, a painter named Frederick Rondel; the artist from Paris. Rondel became a well-known painter after immigrating to NYC from Paris and has been documented as the only formal painting teacher to Winslow Homer.
An interesting circle - Frederick Rondel, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper and me.