Biography

Biography

I remember myself as a child in Jamaica drawing beach scenes on my slate (I know I'm dating myself) . From my early teens I recall spending summers doing pencil landscapes along the banks of the Bronx River in the New York Botanical Gardens. All of my notebooks in school have margin sketches of teachers, professors and classmates. The same is true of my notes from corporate meetings.

I am a self-taught artist and have had several successful one-man shows. I have also participated in shows, made illustrations for local newspapers, civic organizations and greeting card companies. From the spring of 2003 to the end of that year I sold over 100 paintings.

I can most easily be described as a portrait artist. I find doing portraits of ordinary black people going about their everyday lives most satisfying. While my fabric collages are most identifiable I use other mediums as well: acrylics, watercolor and ink in the style/technique of pointillism.

In my work certain images turn up from time to time. I like to explore these familiar characters using different mediums. The material for my collages is drawn from some of my older works combined with the new. It's exciting to combine pieces of my work from different places in time, mood and craft. I take a jewel from an older piece that may have languished for years in my portfolio and place it in a new setting. It is reborn, itself giving life to the new work.

I try to select certain elements of each work on which to focus. My goal is to draw you in emotionally. I want you to look at of my work immediately feeling a change of mood.

I was born in Jamaica West Indies, my family came to The United States in the 1950's settling in the South Bronx. Using G.I. benefits I attended night school at Hunter College in New York City. I graduated with honors going on to Columbia University where I earned a Masters Degree in Business Administration. I am a Certified Public Accountant and a former Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I taught accounting and finance for three year at Morris Brown College. I am now an artist.

I spent more than thirty years pursuing a corporate career in which I was satisfied and successful. Since the spring of 2003 I have been given the gift of embracing a passion; a passion that I had for so many years suppressed. I am driven. I feel as if I have to make up for lost time.

I also write poetry and I am becoming an avid golfer.

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Last modified: 02/07/10