Artist's statement: "American Verismo" has the root word "vero" from the Italian meaning truth. The quote from Caravaggio should not be interpreted as meaning "classical realism", however. Although I respect classical realism very much and am inspired by it, its day has come and gone. Realism, whether contemporary photo realism or classical, has its limits. In contemporary art the principles of abstraction and conceptulaization hold sway. My preference is to use abstraction in my work. Figurative abstraction, for example, gives the artist the ability to include processes that get at the "truth" concealed within nature by eliminating unnecessary detail. The Italian pre-impressionists (the "Macchiaioli") used a mild form of abstraction to capture a glimpse of "truth" in nature in a revolutionary manner for their time. Max Beckman, the German Picasso, is one of my favorite artists. He used both abstraction and conceptual principles in his work. My approach is more naturalistic but draws water from the same well.