In my paintings and gouaches I peregrinate across Suriname, Egypt, Amazonia, and Antarctica with Alexander von Humboldt, Maria Sibylla Merian, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Bates, and Ernest Shackleton as my guides. My works are imaginary renderings of the experiences, places, and specimens recounted in these 18th, 19th,20 and 21th century explorers' journals. I am fascinated by these explorers' resolve to continue questioning the mysteries of the world in spite of the perils and comedy of errors that characterize their journeys. Like them, I am drawn to the wonder and beauty of discovery regardless of the apparent futility of the expeditions and great challenges that they presented. I seek to explore this contradiction in my work. United in our common curiosity about the natural world, we have become collaborators.