People move from place to place for different reasons by chance, instinct, plan, or force. One element that remains constant during these transitions is that people transport objects with them. In my work I create ambiguous narratives that focus on the physical and psychological aspects of migration and displacement. The main subject matter is the container, in the form of crates, boxes, or luggage, and their scale is shifted to underscore their importance.

During a time of family loss, I made small-scale drawings and paintings of fragmented figures. Each part of the figure—the foot, for example—became a character for me. The characters, or rather I the painter, desired to recreate a state of wholeness. The more I tried to piece them back, the more impossible the task became. Eventually a narrative developed and my characters migrated into the landscapes I grew up in.

I am at once celebratory and skeptical of painting. With a studied awareness of painters’ scope of indulgence throughout history, while maintaining an aspiration towards intellectual purpose, I adopt various attitudes in the face of the challenge of painting: casual versus intentional, cynical versus optimistic, sentimental versus indifferent. I evaluate paintings in their relationship to one another. As their interconnectivity occurs naturally and strategically, a multiplicity of personality is revealed, embracing and critical of all pictorial ways of making meaning.