On my paintings

I have been drawn to the human figure as the object of my work since I began painting. In recent years, I have begun exploring the figure as a specimen, or as an object to be studied. Humans are the driving force of my art, and I have a passion for learning about them—their past as well as their contemporary culture. To me, the human form seems to transcend the specific individual. The figure is a physical specimen as well as an amorphous collection of sensory experience—at once both objectively and subjectively fascinating.

I also consider my work to be an archeological exploration of paint. I build my textures up in an attempt to discover something tangible within them. I build up many different layers of paint and then tear them back down, scraping into them, looking for a new inspiration, a creative roadmap. The layers seem chaotic, and give rise to faux entropy, an attempt to represent nature in a destructive act. The figures emerge from the many layers as sculptural ruins excavated from some ancient city. The figures have seen their prime, and now have been left for time and disorder to deconstruct. My paintings represent the destruction of a classical ideal—I tear into them to bring the experiential aspect of human existence into direct physical contact with the classical ideal form. In this way, I am able to represent the concept that subjective experience inevitably erodes the objective ideal.

The classical figures’ initial purpose have been lost. Though they echo something of the past, they give no clear objective truth about anything. They do not interact within a “real” space; they exist within the realm of the unknown; they are mysterious and hidden. They seem to have been lost in the transition of time; though they are visible, their surroundings mask them and shroud them in foggy vapors.

On my drawings

The basic concept of my drawings is to point out the diconnect that American society has with reality. We live in a television- and movie-made world where everything exists solely to appease our basal emotional wants. I believe we as a culture have come to have a very shallow understanding of the world outside our collective bubble. The history being made and the political struggles being fought out in the world are inconsequential fragments that we see as something outside ourselves.

It's this inability to grasp the true big picture that drove me to focus on the subject of warships. Here in these drawings, I have tried to encapsulate my prediction for the future of our culture with regards to the global neighborhood we inhabit. We are rusting out, left to crumble—we are sinking. And yet, even in the midst of the ruin, the viewer can search for something beautiful. Perhaps beauty can emerge out of ruin.