2025 Year-in-Review
Creative highlights from the previous twelve months
Compared to last year, 2025 was quieter but still creatively significant. Below is a look back, organized my medium.
Driven to Mash
My digital mashup art continues to grow and evolve. A trip to Lyons Vintage Junkyard in Kentucky in May resulted in the following additions to the Driven gallery, with the bottom two becoming part of a new "Driven by Entropy" section.
As a tie-in to Driven, I started a "Shop Talk" series of blog/journal entries that take a "behind-the-art" look at a featured mashup and the actual cars used as source images. Each post concludes with comparing the original art with an alternative version, like the image pair shown below.
A Higher Calming
Another year, another new addition as well to the Higher Plane gallery. The "Maximum Zen" sub-gallery emphasizes a more meditative look and feel with a square format and the use of solid color backgrounds sampled from the plane bodies.
A Rounded Refresh
A new discovery of large concrete pipe adapters in a nearby town resulted in a fresh set of images for the Portals series, including the three shown below.
Piping Up
Inspired by new surroundings, 2025 also saw the return of the Pipe Dreams mashup series, which had been taken down from the website a few years back.
Font-tabulous
No mashup review would be complete without a look at some new additions to Not My Type, my longest running series.
Seriously Studious
2025 was the first full year of working in the new art studio space my wife and I began renting in the fall of '24. The initial focus has been on smaller works on paper including the pieces show below. It's been great getting re-connected with my "analog" art, since, despite the fun I have with the digital art, there's still nothing quite like working with real paint and brushes.
Narrowed Focus
Forays into single-image photography were down significantly in 2025, mainly due to the greater amount of time spent in the studio. And, admittedly, there was less motivation to travel and brave the elements in regards to landscape photography in particular. Nevertheless, I still came away with quite a few "keepers." The photos shown below were all taken within a 30 mile radius of our central Illinois location.
On to 2026!
With some solid footing back in the studio and ideas for further developments in the digital space, I'm looking forward to maintaining momentum heading into the new year. As always, I remain thankful for the creative interests and opportunities I've been blessed with. Stay tuned here and on my Instagram account as work continues.
