I’m interested in the history of childhood as a concept. Today, childhood seems to be in a perpetual state of redefinition, with influences from the media, commerce, technology, and globalization. I am also fascinated with late 15th to early 16th century European painting. During this period, Realism in art was instrumental to religious devotion. Holy figures were represented as corporeal, yet idealized beings. I feel that this tradition is echoed in the adoration of children in contemporary secular society.

I find my subject matter everywhere: in the images of the commonplace, the everyday, rather than the exotic or the perfect. It is a fascination with patterns that drives my selection of subject matter, rather than the subjects themselves. By eliminating the context provided by background and examining a subject close-up and enlarged, the resulting composition can be viewed abstractly as a complex arrangements of colors and textures with inherent aesthetic value apart from its representation of an object or place. The resulting in-your-face compositions are intense.

The atmosphere of the Deep South in which I was raised was permeated with secrecy and illusion. Family surveillance, church hypocrisy, and a Mandarinesque social system produced a keen awareness that life was being designed behind many delicate screens. For years I’ve been living in Northern cities and the Western high country. This first group of paintings since my return to New Orleans functions as a decryption for veiled meanings, using forms that suggest the most sensual of emotions: anticipation.

I prefer to learn and work in various mediums and styles in order to diversify the way I can communicate. I liken this approach to being multilingual. Working in this way helps me better understand the world and its symbols, both natural and artificial.

With this particular body of work, I wanted to explore color through a process not unlike the CMYK printing method, but with variations on dot pattern and size, medium, and execution. The subjects of this series are family and friends, simply because they are the people I celebrate. They are my celebrities.

I am interested in pushing the envelope of drawing with a keen eye for detail and narrative. In doing so, I verify the mysticism of drawing which keeps me engaged with it as a vehicle for visual expression. I choose graphite, collage, or mixed media for my tools. I am inspired by iconography, daguerreotype photography and art history, and am interested in how my work can affirm reality and explore deeper areas of the human condition. When successful, my artwork is both playful and challenging, and, like an icon, invites contemplation.

I am trying, playfully, to somehow expose the essence of our existence, or at least some crucial aspect of understanding the human predicament. With this foundational starting point, I hope to come to terms with the primitive inquiry for long term and sustaining fulfillment. I approach this built-in desire with spiritual honesty.

A labyrinth of private emotions exists within each of us. Shaped by personal experiences, their constant presence subconsciously influences how we interpret our world. The imagery of vacant interiors offers a safe setting where I can explore these quiet, submerged emotions without becoming too literal in my portrayals. Although each drawing is created through searching my own perceptions, the resulting rooms are ambiguous enough to house the personal experiences of each viewer.

I want painting to be like a game. I paint and I play games, and in my studio work I play around the borders of both to see what lies between. I use a variety of media to create paintings that are, through their meandering exploration of form and space, suggestive of an alternate world. Given that I am working along the vector of “play,” these alternate spaces take on the nature of the maps and landscapes of games I have experienced, creating imagery that is reflective of the format of such games and also functions as a template for compositional and narrative improvisation.

A few facts:

My work stems from a personal desire to process and reflect on the increasingly haywire relationship and confusion contemporary society has with the natural world, and the forced and uneasy assimilations that take place when the two inevitably meet. Much of this work deals with death, disquiet, chaos and collapse, but not entirely absent in these works is also hope or beauty. I’m intrigued by tension in art and aspire to insert this element on some level into each piece that I create.