Artist Statement
My images discuss the relationship between the human mind in all of its complexities and technology with its persistent ramifications on culture. I create images that allow technology with its digital non-human binary mark to become a co-author alongside organic human mark-making to create a final work of art.
I consider myself an alchemist and my painting process is chaotic and baroque. The final results are overstimulating, haunting works that contain a barrage of information that is not perfectly arranged or pleasing. The images appear to be leaning towards an impending collapse meant to capture the collective angst of our times.
I begin the process by researching, collecting, and manipulating digital images. A composite image is completed and transferred to canvas using a wide variety of techniques. Finally, the canvas is approached with poured and spray paint, rollers, stencils, and brushes to complete the image.
I search, collect, and catalog digital images about utopias, dystopias, science fiction, and scientific and environmental studies, to name a few. These manipulated images are combined with geometric forms and 3-D models and further abstracted on my desktop. Files are saved and repurposed – sometimes reworked years after their original creation. A painting may be started one year and then revisited later when all attachment to the original intention has been abandoned yielding the most interesting results.
Recent Bodies of Work
I have several bodies of work. City of Gold is a series I began when Trump was elected. The series consisted of gold paintings and a site-specific installation which included research into the phenomena of "billionaire bunkers" and "preppers". Loosely based on the myth of King Midas this work looks at the privilege of material wealth and abuse of power.
Psychostasia began during a residency in Greece (2018) that deal with Greek Mythology and the influence of the Fates and Nemesis. This exploration evolved into an installation of organic abstracted sculptural forms accompanied by paintings later titled Psychostasia meaning “the weighing of the souls.”
Escape to… (tentative title) is the newest series of paintings that look at the future desertification of the environment in the wake of the epic wildfires affecting the planet.
City of Gold Installation detail
Psychostasia
Escape to… detail, work in progress
Influences
I am attracted to artists that layer images, pulling together images to create a larger narrative.
My work has been inspired by artist Judy Pfaff. Pfaff’s “Buckets of Rain” created after experiencing the loss of several important people in her life. She used the unearthed roots of a dead tree painted black and white, black lights, geometrically formed white plaster objects to create an other-worldly experience of something suggesting the after-life, loss, and a universal metaphysical questioning of the meaning of life.
The artist Sarah Sze creates structured organic environments using ordinary objects that you could buy at any office supply or hardware store. Her pieces take on the universal or cosmos while incorporating a structure that suggests the essential elements of life appearing to grow organically like a vine. Her works function as three dimensional paintings.
Julie Mehretu creates a multi-layered narrative – each vocabulary of images that form a cohesive image from a distance which breaks down into its complex individual components upon closer scrutiny. Her use of an abstract geometry creates depth, movement and the illusion of an explosion – like the big bang theory. Her work is both structured and organic.
Judy Pfaff, Buckets of Rain, 2006
Sarah Sze, Hidden Relief, 2001
Julie Mehretu, Retopictics, 2001