Natural Landscapes and Layered Color: What Inspires My Abstract Paintings

My abstract paintings are inspired by natural elements - moss, stone, canyons, mycelium, and geology - and by the way color and shape interact through layered painting processes. Rather than depicting places directly, I use abstraction to translate experiences, memory, and observation into color, form, and surface.

“The Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah” 24×24 inches, acrylic on wooden panel, 2023 (Desert West Series)

Much of my inspiration comes from the natural landscapes where I spend time, particularly places where geological time is visible. I am drawn to the progress of moss on stone, the shaping of canyon walls, the shifting paths of a river, and other forms shaped slowly by environmental forces. These landscapes inform my work not as literal imagery, but as starting points for palettes, rhythms, and compositional structures.

Landscape plays a central role in my practice, though not in a traditional representational sense. I am interested in how a place is experienced over time: how light shifts, how color changes with season and weather, and how memory reshapes what we think we saw. Some series are informed by specific locations, including Utah canyon country and other protected public lands, while others emerge from closer-to-home experiences such as hiking in Washington, DC’s Rock Creek Park. These places become sources of visual and emotional information rather than subjects to be illustrated.

Color is the primary language through which these influences appear in my paintings. I work through many layers, alternating between thick applications of paint and softer washes or glazes. This layered approach reflects natural processes such as erosion, sedimentation, and growth, where visible surfaces contain traces of what came before.

Material choices are an important part of this conversation. I work primarily with acrylic paint, on both wooden panels and canvas. I am particularly drawn to working on wood because it allows me to build up substantial layers and then scrape or sand them back, revealing fragments of earlier decisions. This process of revealing and concealing feels closely aligned with the way landscapes hold their history - revealing some aspects while obscuring others.

My interest in repetition and variation also plays a role in how inspiration becomes form. As I’ve mentioned before, I typically work in series, developing several paintings at once that share a palette and a conceptual focus. Working this way allows ideas to circulate between pieces, gaining clarity through repetition.

Art history influences quietly inform my approach as well. I proudly consider myself a grandchild of the Washington Color School movement, especially inspired by artists Anne Truitt and Barnett Newman, whose work demonstrates how restraint, scale, and color can carry emotional and spatial weight. I am also drawn to minimalist painters such as Agnes Martin, whose subtle variations and attention to surface offer a model for patience and sustained looking. These influences are not referenced directly, but they inform my process both consciously and unconsciously.

“Winter Woodland”, 12x12 acrylic and oil pastel on birch panel, 2023 (Rock Creek Park series)

Ultimately, what inspires my abstract paintings is a combination of external observation and internal response. Time spent outdoors, attention to materials, sustained experimentation with color, and an ongoing dialogue with other artists and writers all feed into the work. Painting becomes a way to slow down, to notice subtle shifts, and to translate lived experience into something tactile and resonant.

I hope that when viewers spend time with my paintings, they feel encouraged to linger—to notice how colors interact, how surfaces shift with light, and how their own memories or emotions might surface in response. In that sense, inspiration does not end with the making of the work; it continues in the quiet, shared space between the painting and the viewer.