Through painting, I investigate the experience of place in the landscape. I define place as a location made significant by human interaction and appreciation. Oil painting on site is the means to discovering the signifiers of place. I work from life in landscapes that, through specific qualities, communicate the essential characteristics of the region. In this body of work, I paint on vertical canvases tinted with a colored ground. Using mark and color to capture the scene, I explore the space between illusion and the surface of the painting. The resulting pieces are abstract, suggestive of the landscape but also engaged with formal issues and the history of painting. Additionally, they are in dialog with the literature of the South, which uses the specificity of place to communicate universal truths