Close your eyes and let your thoughts consume you. For me, this is a frequent activity when I am creating autobiographical narratives. Sometimes, I’ll open my eyes and my thoughts and reality intersect, combining into an image I had not imagined previously. When I am painting, I am able to decipher these thoughts and my experiences, elucidating myself and the world around me. My process is similar to the way any human being would seek to resolve a problem. I take pieces of myself and collage them together, like a large and intricate puzzle. Sometimes it fits and sometimes it doesn’t, trial and error is a regular phenomenon, but eventually I find the answers I need in that moment of time and clarity consumes me. In their separate forms, these thoughts and experiences do not appear to make any sense, but when joined together a new narrative is created and sense returns. These frustrations show in my mark making as I often begin work by throwing paint at an empty canvas, watching the chaos ensue as the emotion finds itself a visual form. Over time I create a buildup of pigment and material on the canvas, or rather a buildup of emotion and experienced moments. This process is similar to the growth and life of any individual; we become a summation of experiences and lessons, a buildup of emotions and relationships to other people. It’s all rather random, but some would call that fate.

My paintings utilize the most deeply influential aspects of my own living: my experiences are what I am most strongly connected to so, by depicting them I am able to create visual representations of emotion with a greater ease.  The paintings become severely in depth self-portraits. In collaboration with the portrait of my physical self, there is also a portraiture of the intangible; that which cannot be seen but is felt heavily as I pass through time and reality, that which I attach myself to and detach myself from. 

The nude figure and sexuality additionally remain as consistent themes because I find them to be such a key area for the breeding of human desire and shame and more importantly, an essential part of our core existence. It’s personal and it’s exciting and those moments of secrecy and individuality are where we form some of our most base values. The female figure is a large component of what I do and I am constantly trying to find ways to depict that form in a different manner than past artwork showcased. I seek to show the female in a way that does not evoke feelings of fragility, hyper-feminine emotion, or as a sexual object and that is no easy task. What’s more, I am interested in the general relationship between femininity and sexuality and what that means separated from the typical objectification and ownership that surrounds that combination.