My paintings are like weird dreams, where you recognize everything, and the situation has it's own logic, but it doesn't completely make sense.

I start by taking real things, remembered things, and made up things, and shuffle them like a deck of cards. Then I play solitare with them until something clicks and I see the beginning of a story. The resulting pictures show scenes where odd, sometimes unrelated characters, objects and situations meet each other and coexist.

The image is a puzzle, but it's come from somewhere deep inside me and feels as real as if I'd been there. "What's going on? what does it mean?" are questions that remain and make looking at the paintings continually intriguing and interesting for me, long after I've washed my brushes.

--Terry Marks              
New York City, 2009