I am a narrative painter inspired by the human condition. Some of my biggest influences are Duchamp, Twombly, Kiefer, Rauschenberg, and Schiele. I am attracted to the way these artists in particular have broken and played with the form on and off their canvas or panel. There is also a strong literary and drawing thread throughout the work that appeals to me. This series started as an investigation of the source of the creative impulse. I was drawn to the day dreaming and imaginative play of our child selves. It has lead me to conversations and considerations of our preconceptions about the child and their place in our world. I am struck by the images selected for this series, initially through their poetic humanity. As they develop there is a silent context of a violent and contradictory world that envelope them. These images are speaking to me in both whispers and shouts, of the struggle to both know and reject the reality we live in.

I paint in oils, with thin glazes of color, but start my compositions with collage while prepping each wood panel. During this process, I bring in drawing, sculpture, and texture from paper and charcoal within the panel’s ground. The texts I use become a background noise that informs the symbolic nature of the gesture in each of the compositions. This allows me to play between the spoken, the felt, and the seen within each piece. It is my hope that, as in life, the viewer will bring his or her own histories and judgments to my images, continuing and adding to the narrative. I see the experience of art as a series of individual conversations with a work. When the viewer converses with my work, I hope to influence some type of new perspective for them on their own narrative and that of the larger world.