Bill Claps is a visual artist and writer who studied the arts in New York and Florence, Italy. Claps creates mixed-media works that combine elements of photography, printing, painting and drawing in order to communicate various ideas, and his inspiration has come from sources as varied as language, nature, Asian landscape painting and art history. He has developed a unique process that infuses gold foil into his artworks, which adds much depth and texture. To shield his works from becoming too transparent and literal, Claps began to experiment with incorporating Morse code, the first language of the digital age. As the dots and dashes are not universally understood and can be further abstracted, they add a layer of mystery and symbolism to his art. Claps’ most recent series, Natural Abstractions, pays homage to traditional Chinese paintings and 19th century Japanese master printmakers.