ARTIST STATEMENT

Conveying the ephemeral human experience through figurative painting, primarily self portraiture, has driven my artistic practice, allowing me to investigate self construction, self perception, and separating/ reconciling the interior and exterior world. I strive to make sincere paintings, mining personal experience in order to evoke authentic emotion, while using the lusciousness/thinness, aggressiveness/ breathiness of the paint stroke to imbue meaning. I see painting as a way of recording time and capturing an essence I cannot verbalize.

 

Repeatedly, obsessively, I return to depicting myself. Here I have ultimate control to portray myself in any way I like, without worry of falsely characterizing or subjugating another person. I believe in the ability for the personal to resonate universally, and so in my attempt to be raw and honest in my work I rely on my image.

 

In recent years my overe has opened to include those very close to myself: my mother and my lover. This has allowed the self reflective conversation to include family and close relationships, further investigating the complexity between what is exterior and what is interior.