I gather the pieces of my paintings through a series of habitual actions: 1. I fill sketchbooks with quick line drawings of words, objects, and patterns. I make the drawings while attending to tasks like making dinner, giving my son a bath, or writing a syllabus. 2. I tear off the front panels of cereal boxes, six-pack containers, and old birthday cards to use as material for an ongoing series of small, fast, early morning collages—my daily visual calisthenics.

My work is an extension or contemplation of the act of perception —lines of demarcation are only contextual. Exploring the space where the viewer simultaneously accepts two contradictory ideas provides the foundation. I use basic geometry as a point of departure, creating overlapping, incomplete, and illusory shapes in various stages of flux. Squares fade into squares; circles are completed in a two-way mirror’s reflection; a rectangle is created by smaller rectangles. The shapes visually weave in and out of each other, at once acknowledging and undoing their respective qualifiers.

I pay attention to the weight of color, to its material feel, to patches of pigment. The work is characterized by rhythmic arrangements of these patches. Layering creates depth and distance not through perspective but through accumulation of materials and textures. Incongruous color combinations—delicate, faded, or vibrant— oscillate. In painting, I am focused on the under-recognized haptic pleasures of perception. For me, painting is about holding time, delineating consciousness by spending moments looking. Transitions, where and how things meet, become a way of giving

I use contemporary hyperrealism loosely informed by early European vanitas painting clichés to explore human culture and behavior. Whether my paintings are an outright statement of some anthropological observation or a narrative of human foibles, I try to insert just enough humor and lushness to make them as palatable as possible. My recent work involves allegorical narratives driven by historical commercial wallpaper lurking behind iconic contemporary baked goods and candy. A classic French pastoral toile print in a decidedly nontraditional color

What captures my attention as an artist are ordinary things, artifacts of lives lived and time passing: a folded newspaper, a mosaic tile, a frayed textile. I find visual patterns in these artifacts and re-create and expand on them in a slow, deliberate process that replicates aging and imperfection through cutting, burning, and layering. The paper I choose is essential to the result. I often work on preexisting media such as newspaper and books, cutting away some of the content, but I also use handmade paper to contrast my drawing with pure, white grounds. The intricate visual

I refer to photographs for subject matter. The photographs come from a variety of sources, but are mostly my own. They are a starting point. They vary in subject matter, from people to farmyard animals, landscapes, and still lifes—whatever plays into my current concerns. In the paintings, the image is cropped, manipulated, reduced. Throughout the painting process, I might subtract or add elements, further tuning the composition.

The two-dimensional picture plane of painting has shifted from a standardized formal element to a pattern of behavior. Through executing what is most important to my practice, I encourage the viewer to focus on the structure, where I use traditional canvas-building techniques. The majority of the formal elements are made during the canvas creation stage, before I ever put a brushstroke to the surface. The end result emphasizes sculptural forms and explores the parallel nature of painting and sculpture. A deep respect for craftsmanship manifests itself throughout

I am interested in the viewer’s experience with painting as both physical and optical. I make paintings that merge two- and threedimensional space, creating a type of interactive painting. I usually start a work using repetitive shapes and/or linear structures that are built organically over time. Eventually, larger forms begin to emerge, and the direction of the work unfolds. For me, it is like drawing and painting in space, allowing the work to become. I am influenced by op art, color field painting, and modern furniture design and textiles, among other things. By investigating

I’m a visual storyteller. My recent body of paintings, Flights of Fancy, conjures moments of make-believe and fantasy, telling whimsical and mysterious tales derived from ancient myths and comic-book adventure stories.