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Artist Statement

I'm interested in how much a single narrative moment can tell us about ourselves. At first glance my work appears ordinary but nothing is really what it seems. The backgrounds of my work are covered with words that are scratched into the walls of the rooms.  It can have a contradictory quality, yet are integrated into the space as it is into human consciousness.  The paintings are purposely intimate in scale or detailed so that the viewer is drawn in for a closer look. Then the narrative or content can change because of the written words on the walls or other images that are not immediately visible. Repeated images such as brick, plants, crumpled paper, windows and sky, reflect the surreal subtleties that lurk in the mundane and peripheral experience of contemporary life. My work is involved with expressing the paradoxical truths and the short stories have psychological theory. The characters for the most part are people that I know. Class issues, especially in the art world, are an under explored topic. My life’s work has been involved with this investigation and other social political issues. I believe the personal is political and that the personal reference in my work can be a universal experience. This larger scaled series I’m currently working on are people disrobing underwater and “Men in Trouble”. It’s about the vulnerability or fragility of the human experience. It suggests the fine line between life and death and the will to survive and the confinements we create in our lives due to our beliefs and customs that are for better and for worse. It is about the changing world we live in, and how we react to that. It suggests that successful change happens within and the most effective way to achieve this is by men helping each other. The fragments of light piercing from above the outside world displaces the recognizable moment, which is parallel to the uncertainty and unexpected course of events that can define and change our lives forever.
