For the past dozen years, I have painted the bridges in “bridge cities” such as Chicago, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, and, most recently, Berlin, Germany.

I select particular design elements and eliminate the background context in order to emphasize form. What may appear to be a random arrangement of bolts and rivets has, on close inspection, a rigidly patterned logic. The forms are presented in “natural” bridge colors, in bold contrast to the voids they span. They float in light that plays across the surface details. The variations can be simple or elaborate, ranging from limited themes of a few notes to grand, fugal extravaganzas. I compose my subjects with the camera and when I choose an image I paint it as accurately as possible. I call my approach “abstract realism.”

The bridge subject suggests several layers of “reality.” Much of human experience involves the use of mundane things that we take for granted. These works focus attention on things we use every day but may never really see.