Cityzen Art

Many years ago I was trying to learn about Modern Art and how a painting of seemingly haphazard brushstrokes could be worth anything, let alone tens of thousands of dollars. I set out to find my understanding in a stack of books. I followed my nose and decided that Franz Kline naturally appealed to me. His work became my starting point in my scholarly pursuits. I was only 19 and from a small town in East Texas living in Boston and began to forage my way through philosophical and psychological experiments of the Ages. Zen was a concept that was foreign to me at the time and seemed essential to the appreciation of Abstract Expressionism, especially Franz Kline's work. And so I began to read about Buddhism. It clicked when I found a quote that claimed "I cannot explain Zen, but you can find it in sound of the wind through the leaves."

When I came up with the name Cityzen, I wanted to express myself as an "urban" artist and deal with the themes that come about through living in the city. I can certainly say that I've lost touch of that original sentiment, and yet my life has taken me to some of the greatest urban ways of life one can have. NO part of the city has been out of my reach. And last night, I was walking home from the library, down Wilson St. in Chicago and turned my headphones off so that I could listen to the sound of the wind across the bricks and the sidewalk and it all came rushing back to me... Zen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU9p1WRfA9w