Artist Statement

I’ve always been interested in history and its many layers, and enjoyed seeing rough drafts for essays and the special features for movies and cartoons. You get to really dive into someone’s feeling and thinking process this way, and hopefully relate to at least a certain degree. I love the expression, “to walk in someone’s shows”; it speaks to the raw and personal spirit of my work. I try to leave some of my measuring marks and share some of the underneath layers, which are often a combination of marks and materials. My work tends to be rough in nature representing the perfect imperfections of the human hand which I find to be beautiful. I feel that there is always a certain amount of social pressure to conceal an under layer of something genuine for the sake of revealing something better - something more polished and ideal. As a little rebellion, I try to purposely leave mistakes and strive towards an unfinished earthy representation. My process consists of using brushes, pencils, rags, nails, fingers, and palette knives, and I work from life as well as from reference material. My palette is a combination of earthy and prismatic colors, representing the natural and unnatural aspects of life (both can be bright or dull). Like history, my paintings and drawings are layers of human experience - sometimes mine and sometimes someone else’s.