Artist Statements
The Age Of Illuminated Phenomena 2009
The Age Of Illuminated Phenomena depicts a cast of characters that have been released from the deep well of my subconscious and given a platform to exist and live on the surface of the canvas. The children in this show embody what is often lost to societal and cultural influence on the way to adulthood -- uninhibited and raw emotion, sincerity, and a world occupied with magic and wonder. I see myself as the guide and protector for this regiment of girls and the associated self-portraits are a direct reflection of my own attempts to move forward through this troubled world.
My work portrays an environment where very abstract ideas are tweaked to become human, and human emotions are abstracted into painterly process. These works articulate and crystallize abstract, subconscious ideas into individual portraits through the intuitive process of oil painting so they can then be more thoroughly examined in the guise of the human form. Each portrait is an iteration of myself, as each one is born from a particular place in the depths of my psyche.
Although portraiture has been used as a tool to express and explore latent psychological ideals since the beginning of time, its uses in the contemporary art world have been regularly disregarded. I see myself as just one small voice in a much larger movement to bring integrity, sincerity, and a genuine search for truth back into contemporary art practice. Utilizing the figure to do so invites viewers to connect with the work on a universal level.
Discovering Delirium, MFA Exhibition 2008
Discovering Delirium depicts a search for understanding place and documenting perceptions of self. As individuals and as a society we are constantly assessing where we belong and where we stand at any given moment. In order to make sense of experience, we reflect on, order, and categorize our experiences. I often perceive the passing of time as a cinematic display of sights, sounds, and abstract symbols in constant motion. My paintings aim to capture the essence of this perception while pressing pause on the formative stages of comprehension.
The work stems from my own efforts to establish a strong sense of self in a problematic society. This includes a stifling helplessness in light of world events, an embodiment of the mundane, and a limited but necessary ability to transcend circumstance. Since the memory of reality is ever-changing in relation to new experiences, my painting process combines remembered events or places with direct visual representation to create a fusion of past and present. I work from the understanding that the misguided or false nature of memory that stems from dreams and unconscious imagination is a real part of self reflection and an essential component of reality.
The paintings display a psychological landscape that depicts how we linger on the pure artifice of the surface while comprehending the murky depths below. The past is used to comprehend the present just as hopes or fears color our interpretations of people and things. I seek a more lucid articulation of the many dualities that personify the mask of human experience by combining the serious with the sensual; the frenetic with the solitary; the real and the imagined. Through this approach, the work attempts to look inward at the self and outward at the world at the same time. My paintings exist in a world that falls apart and comes together through a kind of visual turbulence in a structure of overall harmony.