Dune Landscape, 2007 oil on canvas, 18 x 24 cm

I was born in New York City in 1969. My parents encouraged me to draw and paint from a young age. As a teenager, I painted landscapes in oil, but I felt that I should seek a more practical career.

I went to college at the University of Chicago and got my BA in biology in 1991. After that I did research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. I studied visual perception and the primate visual system. I got my Ph.D. in 1995.

During post-doctoral research in Amsterdam, I rediscovered my interest in art and decided to become a painter.

Walter Bartman was my art teacher in high school in 1984-86 in Bethesda, Maryland. Students of “Mr. Bartman” were ten times more likely to become Presidential Scholars in Visual Arts than students in other art classes in the United States. Although he retired from high school teaching in 2001, Walter Bartman continues to teach landscape painting in Maryland and in workshops across the U.S. and in Europe.
Artwork in this post is plein air painting by Walter Bartman [click images to enlarge]. This interview was edited for publication together with Leslie Holt (more…)