Painting is my catharsis. I use it to express my daily struggles, celebrate my triumphs, and relate my personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences in a manner both public and private. It is the most public way I relate many of these feelings because the paintings are intended to be seen and discussed. It is also very private to me because they are not directly representational; they convey a message without “telling” you what you should be seeing.
My paintings aim to capture a dream-like reality in which everything is fluid, giving you a general feeling or mood you may then respond to based on your own experiences. Darkly entrancing, vividly revealing, these paintings reflect the deepest parts of my soul, both dark and bright. The ethereal quality allows you as a viewer to add your own interpretations to what you are observing. What you see is then also a reflection of yourself, your innermost thoughts and feelings; revealed to you and to you alone, a private moment in the midst of a very public place.
Heavily influenced by the Surrealists, I utilize automatic drawing and painting to dig into my deepest self. Using marker, I stand a full sheet of plywood up on an edge and let my hand follow natural contours in the grain pattern to create the eventual outlines of each piece while my mind wanders. Once the resulting shapes are cut out, I start painting in oils in a similar fashion. I begin with a couple of colors and a single area of the painting, then branch out into other areas and colors as dictated by what has been placed down on the board. Most paintings are completed in one sitting once the painting process has begun; thus I end up capturing a single mood, emotion, or mindset in each painting. The end result is colorful, active, and reflective of my thoughts at the time; they often demonstrate influence from Franz Marc’s animal paintings. I work with open shapes because that feels most natural to me. The organic outlines better serve to display the sometimes twisted lines my thoughts follow, flowing from one moment to the next, much as my paintings flow from one to the next. The edges are left unfinished and raw, turning the paintings into windows to another world.
Being an emergency responder and a nature lover, I often see bits and pieces of both worlds in my paintings. The forms themselves evoke human, animal, and plant life, though they do not dictate which they are. In some areas, the paintings are peaceful, quiet, reminiscent of the woods before the animals awake; in others they are nearly violent with intensity. Sharp, staccato forms clash with softly blended areas of the fluid-like backgrounds and foregrounds to create a whole image that is appealing, invigorating, and revealing.
They are windows into my soul, and windows into your soul, a world we all understand though few can explain it. They hint at secrets bared while never actually revealing those same secrets. I invite you, the viewer, to look at my paintings, see into the twisted caverns of my mind. While you look, while you discover my world, don’t be surprised if you see yourself reflected there as well, and find that you, too, are a little bit twisted.
My paintings aim to capture a dream-like reality in which everything is fluid, giving you a general feeling or mood you may then respond to based on your own experiences. Darkly entrancing, vividly revealing, these paintings reflect the deepest parts of my soul, both dark and bright. The ethereal quality allows you as a viewer to add your own interpretations to what you are observing. What you see is then also a reflection of yourself, your innermost thoughts and feelings; revealed to you and to you alone, a private moment in the midst of a very public place.
Heavily influenced by the Surrealists, I utilize automatic drawing and painting to dig into my deepest self. Using marker, I stand a full sheet of plywood up on an edge and let my hand follow natural contours in the grain pattern to create the eventual outlines of each piece while my mind wanders. Once the resulting shapes are cut out, I start painting in oils in a similar fashion. I begin with a couple of colors and a single area of the painting, then branch out into other areas and colors as dictated by what has been placed down on the board. Most paintings are completed in one sitting once the painting process has begun; thus I end up capturing a single mood, emotion, or mindset in each painting. The end result is colorful, active, and reflective of my thoughts at the time; they often demonstrate influence from Franz Marc’s animal paintings. I work with open shapes because that feels most natural to me. The organic outlines better serve to display the sometimes twisted lines my thoughts follow, flowing from one moment to the next, much as my paintings flow from one to the next. The edges are left unfinished and raw, turning the paintings into windows to another world.
Being an emergency responder and a nature lover, I often see bits and pieces of both worlds in my paintings. The forms themselves evoke human, animal, and plant life, though they do not dictate which they are. In some areas, the paintings are peaceful, quiet, reminiscent of the woods before the animals awake; in others they are nearly violent with intensity. Sharp, staccato forms clash with softly blended areas of the fluid-like backgrounds and foregrounds to create a whole image that is appealing, invigorating, and revealing.
They are windows into my soul, and windows into your soul, a world we all understand though few can explain it. They hint at secrets bared while never actually revealing those same secrets. I invite you, the viewer, to look at my paintings, see into the twisted caverns of my mind. While you look, while you discover my world, don’t be surprised if you see yourself reflected there as well, and find that you, too, are a little bit twisted.