Dive in, the water is cold. Dive in, the water is warm. These are the titles of the works above. I am curious about the sheer solidity of these pensive forms. And I am curious about the evolving luminosity of these elements, the sudden contrast between dark and light. I am curious about the deep pigments that reside here in these sullen slabs of paint. I am a curious man. I think that is why I paint. You never know what the paint will do.

As a child, I never knew what art was, let alone what it could be. I grew up in Prince Edward Island, a dreary isolated island on the east coast of Canada. There was no art in the schools, and the only art I ever saw were those dreary landscapes on everybody’s walls that seemed to be compulsory. Art absolutely bored me.

What a shock when I left at 17 to bicycle around Europe and stopped into my first art museum — the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Van Gogh absolutely blew my mind. I couldn’t believe the vivid colors, the bold strokes of the paintbrush. And then I saw a few paintings by Matisse, and that was the beginning of my addiction to art, although I never thought I could be one of those artists. I was too intimidated by their skill, yet I have to admit that a secret desire to create great works of art had lodged itself in my developing brain.