Pear & Plums at Yosemite after Bierstadt

I have always been a still life painter.  I set up my still life arrangements for color and formal compositional elements, as well as for emotional and conceptual content.  My work depicts arrangements of objects placed in front of excerpts from old master paintings of figurative or landscape subjects.  I think of still life genre as a stage where any setting is possible.  The background of this painting is based on a painting by Albert Bierstadt depicting 'Halfdome', Yosemite Valley, c. 1866. –Artist statement