There’s a brief moment of clarity when I enter the studio the day after painting into the night. Before my mind’s eye adjusts and accepts things, which is a matter of seconds, I see them fresh. I see what I achieved, or what slipped through my fingers into nothingness. It’s a fleeting glimpse of what I actually have, and almost always at odds with what I thought I had. When a little shift occurs between my memory and what I confront anew, I know I’m close.

My work is content-driven, and it gathers complexity throughout the painting process. Politics, nature, the environment, beauty, popular culture, and art-historical references coalesce in unexpected ways. Meaning often remains elusive to me for a time, though a friend recently described my work as a combination of the “sacred and whatever,” and that seems to fit. I don’t figure things out and fill them in, I build one element on top of another, moving from one association to the next, until I can’t add or subtract anything without undermining a sense of balance.