ARTIST STATEMENT

 As a painter specializing in representational realism, most of my inspiration comes from the desire to expose glimpses of my inner world to those who are willing to see them. This desire is combined with the knowledge that I have a unique voice and the great privilege of expressing the truths that I hold dear through this wonderful medium. I have always found visual art to be the primary way I am able to express and communicate these truths. The process of creating work takes me from the deep contemplation of an idea, through an adventure of ideas and many possible forms of expression, all the way back to contemplation. I believe that art is a way of drastically slowing down our visual experience in a chaotic world of constant visual stimulation. A painting can make time stand still for extended periods of time, while we seek to actually see and understand what is being communicated through the work. This process turns the artist and the viewer into better philosophers.

My work is heavily influenced by my spiritual journey. I am extremely enthusiastic about the beauty of the truths that I seek to communicate. The themes that are a constant in my work are the redemption of a broken humanity, and the exploration of what we can perceive outside the constraints of the zeitgeist of our times. There is a need we all have to connect with the minimal, real, authentic side of what it means to be human, which is a need that transcends time and can take us into a meditative process of exploring the realities of our nature, our situation, and our experience.

Visually, this manifests in my art as a propensity for imagery that speaks to eternal concepts, often having an ethereal, atmospheric quality, and having themes that either reflect on timelessness or times past, memory, and our association with the things that make up our memories. There is so much beauty to behold in seemingly mundane moments. There is so much going on when we aren’t paying attention. My work is an exploration of what is going on behind that curtain.