Although always rooted in the act of observation, my paintings are fictional constructs that represent a long and complicated negotiation between what is out there in the world—the objects in a still life; the rocks, hills, or bodies of water in a landscape—and my subjective response to them. This most recent body of work is based on the landscape of the Roundstone Bog in the Connemara region of west Ireland. My fascination with this area is both personal—my maternal grandmother was born in a fishing village in this region—and conceptual. The geological history of the bog is fascinating, and the contemporary characteristics of this austere landscape present visual problems that intrigue and challenge me as a painter. As in all of my work, it is the relationship between perception, representation, and abstraction that holds my attention: how a field of rocks becomes an arrangement of color and physical marks on canvas or paper; how the painting that results resonates with a viewer’s own thoughts, experiences, and memories.