Viscerism

A movement built without a model.

This way of seeing began with a single painting. How Viscerism was born →

My primary tool is the palette knife. There is no drawing — no sketch to fill in, no photograph to copy, no form decided in advance. The layers come first — color built on color — and within that accumulation, something begins to surface. Sometimes, when I feel the layers need it, I bring in something more frenetic: drops of ink, or acrylic paint released instinctively from tools like a paint marker — thrown in without thinking, not to draw, but to help something be found. Whatever the tool, the process is the same — I don't invent what emerges. I find it. And once I see it, I reinforce it with more color, more layers, until it holds its shape.

This is the core of Viscerism: the image is discovered, not designed. Because there is nothing being copied or modeled, there is no "right" or "wrong" version of what emerges — only what is faithfully seen and followed. I think of it as a message from somewhere beneath conscious intention. Not fiction. Not invented. Something felt, or thought, or simply liked without knowing why — until the moment it's seen.

It's a little like the way people find shapes in clouds — a face, an animal, something recognizable emerging from something formless. Viscerism works the same way, except the "clouds" are layers of color I build myself, and what I find within them isn't imagined or invented. It's something already there, waiting to be seen.

What this means for the viewer:

Because there is no outline to follow, no fixed image being represented, each viewer's eyes and mind do the work of deciphering what's there. What one person sees will not be what another sees — each interpretation is filtered through their own life, their own experience, their own limited (and therefore entirely personal) knowledge. Not mine. Not anyone else's.

This is the power of the work: the same image reads differently for everyone who meets it. It cannot be pinned to a single meaning, because it was never built from one.

Knowing when it's finished:

Even once the image has revealed itself, I keep tuning it. I'll come back to a piece I thought was done, because I start seeing things I hadn't noticed before — a color that needs adjusting, a balance that isn't quite right yet. I can't help but give it those final touches whenever I feel they're needed.

Part of this is anticipating light. I'll bring a painting into different rooms, different walls, and watch how the light moves across it — and where it needs more, I'll add gold or silver to bring light into the piece itself.

It's like tuning an orchestra: making sure every color is in balance, that there's a rhythm to how the eye reads across it. This isn't something I plan or measure — it's my own eyes telling me what's needed, the same instinct that guided the whole painting from the start.

How long does it take?

People often ask how long a painting takes, expecting a simple answer. There isn't one — it's not about size. Some larger paintings have taken me far less time than small ones, because I feel freer, less constrained, and that freedom helps me arrive at the image faster.

You can't know in advance how long it will take. But the longer I stay with it, the more likely it becomes something I'm proud of — something where you can see the depth in the layers, where the time was worth it. And once it's finished, it can't be reproduced. Not by me, not by anyone. All those layers, that particular history of searching, only happen once.

This is different from realistic painting, where you can roughly estimate the hours a technique will take. In abstract work, you might simply stop when the composition satisfies you. In Viscerism, the challenge isn't composition — it's finding meaning. And that has no fixed timeline.

When I paint for someone else:

When I take on a commission, I don't begin with a plan for what the painting will look like — I begin with the person. I want to hear their story, their interests, what moves them. I ask about color instinctively too: do they lean toward cold hues or warm ones. It's less a brief and more something closer to getting to know someone's inner world.

With that understanding held loosely in mind, I paint the same way I always do — without forcing an outcome, without deciding the image in advance. I simply let my emotion, shaped by what I've learned about them, move through the same process of layers and discovery. The aim isn't to paint what they asked for literally, but to create something that reaches them — almost as if seeing through their eyes, without ever losing the way the image has to arrive on its own.

Read more about how commissions work →