My work begins with writing.

In small handwriting, I record people I observe: a posture, a face held a second. What draws me is a desire to belong, surfacing. I paint not the desire but the mirages we build around it: love, recognition. In the writing, they are already symbols, strange faces and postures telling their own story.

Maternal forms recur: breasts, a body arranged to hold another. The posture is caretaking, but neckties and polished shoes arrive with it, carrying discomfort and social demand. On the canvas, the contrast can look like harmony, but the symbols pull against each other, talking.

Painting is where translation fails. The person I wrote about is gone; the figure exists as image itself. I work in oil, ink, cold wax, and many textures, and the surface shows that failure: the carefully rendered figure set against marks I pressed into it by hand.

The desire to be held, the desire to remain wholly oneself. Neither gives way.
Like a lobster, soft inside and more ornate than anything around it.