Starting out as a figurative painter, I yearned to understand abstraction.  My teacher Yves Gaucher told me I would find abstraction through the figure, if I could move past favoring the figure and equalizing it with the ground.  And so I embarked on a one year project where I would paint my friend Duncan Graham again and again.  When I lugged these huge paintings (usually 6 feet by something) to class, all Yves would say was : Figure, Ground.  Figure Ground.  I finally started to get it by the end of series.  (Thank you Duncan, for being so patient and modelling for me…)