Having painted for many years utilizing traditional media I realized I was limiting myself as an artist. I was always trying to collect images and depicts connections between things. By utilizing a hybrid digital approach that combines both my traditional media images and acquired digital imagery I could express myself more fully. I felt like I was getting closer to the meat of the matter.

For example, the latest work that I have produced is called "Leo Leda". Without going into all of the mythology etc. etc. it really doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is the image and producing something that is in this case trying to be beautiful by creating a triptych with an image that was begun as a mixed-media painting/collage having to do with how art is disseminated and sold. There is a collage element of the New York Times full-page ad for a webcast auction of Mark Rothko painting. There is an image of Rothko's grave, there is an image of one of his paintings. A CD representing the high-technology aspect of the digital age is in very low tech terms painted over with encaustic. This image is bracketed by two vertical rectangles in two different predominant shades of red. Interspersed among these red rectangles other images come forward. I've included what's left of a Matisse, a Leonardo and a Robert Rauschenberg depiction of JFK. 

The question for me is, can this be art, should be art? I say it is art. I can imagine an artist like public because of not working today in a digital way as well as traditional. After all, public also said that an artist is simply a collector is always collecting the work of other artists. So, is this work valid? I say so, what do you?