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"Drawing and now painting have always come relatively naturally to me. Even as a child of probably six or seven years I was capable of capturing decent resemblances of friends and relatives on paper.  Later, throughout highschool and college years, my mother urged me to take art courses, which I never did, probably for the same peculiar reasons young adults rarely follow their parents' suggestions.  Other than several years of weekly night classes with a wonderful Austrian artist, Jacques Hans Gallrein, who taught me how to use oil paints, I am fundamentally a "self-taught artist" which  allowed me to develop my own style without interference from professors, peers, critics, the media, etc.

An art dealer, who once represented my work and whom I respected,  told me that I had the ability to "emote through my paintings".  Possibly this innate ability to accurately depict imagery through oil paints has permitted me to suppress the physical process of painting and allow feelings and emotions to come to the fore in my work.  And perhaps that, combined with a love for what I am doing, is a necessary component for "emoting through my paintings".  Joann Rea