Artist Statement

 I make abstract, narrative paintings which explore time, perception, and mortality. The images feature cartoonish beings inspired by marine life, classic monster movies, and science fiction. They are depictions of imagined worlds undergoing constant transformation.

Crafting these paintings often begins by imagining hypothetical scenarios which cause me to ask questions about form, process, and narrative. I try to follow these situations out, letting them develop their own internal logic, while playfully embracing the materiality of the process as it unfolds. What would happen to a species if toxins were dumped into the water? What would happen if the light were taken away?

Life is depicted as deterioration, paradise and catastrophe. Solid matter dissolves, solidifies, and reconfigures itself. Because the forms behave this way, the paintings imply passage of time within the still image.

Symbols are distorted through pixelation, blurring of forms and textured and collaged surfaces. Cardboard, spray paint, sand, netting, oil and acrylic washes, sketches, and stencils are used to complicate the reading of the forms. The fragmentary images present contradictory perceptions that confuse the reading of the situation. A facial feature may also be seen as a symbol or a component of a larger system.

The work is inspired by the strange life forms of the natural world, as well as the symbolic, imagined creatures found in myth and fiction. I reference a range of imagery from alchemical manuscripts to cartoons, ocean documentaries, art history and written language.  Through this eclectic range of subjects and ways of making the image, I create new, tragicomic myths which create connections from the past, present and future, and from what is real and what is imagined.