In one of his letters to his brother Vincent, Theo van Gogh described Vincent’s process as ”Seeking symbols by doing violence to form”. I am not far from that process. My paintings are landscapes, but they are not precise or nostalgic evocations of a real scene. They are unabashedly expressionistic. I use studies, usually pastels done en plein air as a starting point in my process. I am not however an en plein air painter. The pastels are a road map for a journey to a greater sense of reality at once personal and universal.