- [Announcer] If you want to know what's going on... (jaunty music) (birds chirping) (audience clapping) (horns honking) (static crackling) - En plein air.

It's not that my French is terrible, my French doesn't exist.

But I think it translates directly to in open air, or outside.

So I've been to this place once before.

It's very secluded.

It's fun 'cause you can kind of exist with your thoughts a little bit more, and not get like intercepted by passersby being like, oh my gosh.

And they're like, oh, let me see what it looks like.

And they look at it and they're like, oh, it's nice.

Or they get that look on their face of not being so impressed.

(dynamic music) I genuinely love it at this point.

(jazzy music) I am gonna try and start laying in some lights and darks to sort of find my composition, and find my palette a little bit.

I'm a huge proponent of, it's not what you paint, it's how you paint.

That's why I'm very comfortable painting next to a highway.

Well, I shouldn't say very comfortable 'cause I don't know, I think I spend most of a painting just sort of clenching my butt cheeks together hoping it's gonna turn out okay.

But one of the reasons I love painting outside so much is because it keeps you really humble.

Being a landscape painter.

It's really great.

All the time.

- I want it to feel like today, which is overcast weather.

Kind of weird out.

I have this pillar here that I see out there.

This weird, this kind of art deco, super ugly.

And I'm trying real hard not to objectify anything.

When I see a building, I don't wanna just like put down a concrete building and lock it into place.

I wanna be able to still manipulate it and play with it as paint.

I'm not trying to complete a shape.

When I look up, I'm trying to see where my eye goes to.

And I think that one can sort of analyze later on why did it go there?

I think I was too hard on this art deco thing earlier.

I think it might be nicer than I thought.

Some of the intrusive thoughts I might have are, this won't sell, this will sell, which is actually a more intrusive thought.

That's when you start to dip into your recipe book of things you know will work.

I want it to feel like a battle.

I want it to feel like a struggle.

I joke about the insecurities, but I think they help the work at the end of the day.

(dynamic music) And a lot of my work, there's an absence in there, because my goal isn't just to make what is present pleasant.

I'm looking for something else.

The gallery director at the Dryden Gallery described my work as the gateway drug into abstraction.

Like what does abstract mean?

I think the Latin root of it is to take from.

And so I like thinking about it that way.

(strong music) I was lucky enough to have a show at the Dryden Gallery, which was a great experience because I got to be my truest self in my work.

There was a long time where I looked at where I am now as it, but I really feel that line always moves.

I have a family, and that sense of purpose is far greater than that for me as a painter.

They're the driving force behind just making it work.

Art's a verb.

It's not a thing.

You never get to the point where like, I did it.

I figured it out.

You're always traveling, whatever that may be.

(jaunty music) (birds chirping) (audience clapping) (horns honking) (static crackling) - [Announcer] Watch More Art Inc. A Rhode Island PBS original series now streaming at ripbs.org/artinc.