Artist's Statement

           My work creates and displays deeply personal and intricate environments that explore various approaches to portraiture. I use my artwork to explore and concentrate on the idea of creating portraiture through the subject’s environment and the objects that share the same space. The use of invented narrative through objects and settings in my pieces allow me to represent the subject of my portraiture with the intention of making the line between invented visual narrative and observational reality indistinguishable.  I use my pieces as a medium for storytelling, allowing my art to act as and become a visual embodiment of a time capsule. My art acts as a yearbook photo for casual settings that highlight palpable and intimate moments between my subjects and the viewer, allowing me to preserve that moment in time within my work. I thrive on the mundane and intimate moments between my subjects and their occupied spaces that work to incorporate their personal contemporary fashion and interior design settings to depict their specific style and individual taste.

                I am influenced heavily by themes of personal identity, dark sarcasm, figure dominated spaces, portraiture through environment and color, and creating visual diaries of time sensitive fashion, culture, and intimate interior settings. Shanna Van Maurik and the acid drenched creations of Wayne Coyne have influenced my color palette as well as my attention to brush strokes.  I am exploring the use of radiating graphic lines, neon colors, and their relationships to my subjects in order to create tangible moods, graphic rhythm, and to help illustrate the identity of each individual subject in direct correlation to their environments.  I choose my subjects with care, selecting those who have permitted me into the personal arenas of their lives. Through a deep understanding of my subjects, I am able to display their unique visual aspects with the goal of immortalizing them in my works.