I approach the canvas as if making a three-dimensional sculpture. I want the paint to move and shift for the viewer. I expose and intertwine the hidden with the obvious: pulling the inside out and pushing the outside in. My color palette, paint surfaces, application, and composition are manipulated to make space, to box space.

I’ve lived in Chicago for over twenty years. In that time, the city’s raw and rigid buildings, streets, and people have crept into my paintings. Exposed pipes, plumbing, and wires have become part of my work. Figures are abstracted and reconstructed from flesh-colored lines. I translate and superimpose the cityscape, melding humanity into the urban environment.

I’m interested in revealing the contradictory and complex elements that exist around us. Gravity, violence, grace, and beauty all coexist and can be simultaneously exquisite and perverse.

Personally, the act of painting is an open and honest back-and-forth conversation. The fulfillment comes when that dialogue is achieved.