The work grows from a single mark, measuring approximately 1/4" x 1/16", applied again and again until the surface of the painting is covered. Evolving from a desire to make an unintentional associative image, the mark is applied with intent to suggest both the random and the intuitive, its physical presence eliciting associations and ambiguity. The sub-total of the vast quantity of these generic abstract marks suddenly becomes bigger, morphing into impressions of clouds, steam, fur, a sub-atomic world, and, in the case of The Swing, The Pursuit, and L'Amant Concour, inhabited landscapes. Directly referencing the compositions of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, The Pursuit, and L'Amant Concour honor Fragonard's delicate balance of fantasy and reality. The figure at a distance is camouflaged by the mark, ambiguously floating in the seemingly abstract composition. Upon closer inspection, the figure emerges from what could be vegetation or fanciful imagined landscape. As in Fragonard's work, the ground threatens to overwhelm the figure. It is this dynamic relationship between figure and ground that prevents the work from becoming a purely abstract or figurative painting, creating a tension between both worlds.