Edits

I make art to feel a connection to the world. The act of painting helps me to process how I feel about my sphere of daily life. Painting forces me to engage with the present, to be actively aware of the now: my feelings, thoughts, events. I also make art because I feel like there's a gap in the culture that I can fill with my paintings. This gap is found somewhere between photo-realism and gestural painting.
I am inspired by painters who paint the figure in a gestural and abstract fashion. I believe these kinds of paintings have the right kind of life and energy that I'm after in my own work, but I feel like there needs to be more of this kind of painting. I am unsatisfied with the state of the current visual landscape. In my opinion, it has become homogenized and devoid of genuine emotion. I am inspired to try and be a part of the remedy to this situation through painting.
My art signifies a response to the current monoply of the digital image on the visual landscape, a desire to break through the surface to a deeper understanding of what it is to see. My art prompts the viewer to do the same.
My art is specific to the current dialogue of contemporary painting because it combines the supposed binaries of representation and abstraction simultaneously. My art is distinctive because it uses traditional tools to create contemporary images and uses contemporary images to create traditional art objects.
The meaning in my art lies in inviting the viewer to participate in looking and deciphering the painting. My art is a challenge, puzzle, or visual riddle. My art extends the discussion of the relevance of painting started by Modernism, questioned by post-modernism, and its constant reevaluation in contemporary art dialogue.