I call these “ecotone paintings” because they have a likeness to this ecological concept. The paintings are an embodiment between the external physically observed realm and the internal realm of the psyche. I paint observations of nature in isolation, where the nonhuman environment captures my attention and speaks to me. As I pay attention to nature’s physical form it reminds me of a memory or gives me a thought and feeling, and this interprets my observation. Materiality embodies everything that is happening while I’m painting; inner experiences embed in texture, construct, color and mark the image. The recursive nature of painting and observing nature sways between an internal experience responding to an external observation. Philosophically speaking I follow in the footsteps of American Transcendentalism and deviate from its path into an uncharted neo-transcendentalist realm, embarking on an idiosyncratic spiritual journey that is still rife with the rigor of Enlightenment principles to critically think about everything we experience and believe. But I want to find deeper abstract underlying structures in my existential journey, something that wrestles with romanticism, skepticism and rationale as it relates to my experience of painting nature until I submit to its absurdity.