I’m fascinated by the built environment. I reflect on what the structures tell about their builders as well as their interaction with nature. Since 2000 I’ve focused on the engineering ingenuity that created Chicago’s many bridges. Structural elements are abstracted from their context and painted with a hard-edged realism on a scale that highlights the monumentality of the forms and the creativity necessary for their existence. I work from photos taken on site and frequently develop smaller-scaled black and white pencil renditions before transferring the subject to canvas.