Artist's Statement
Artist’s Statement
My path towards drawing went through my study of sculpture. When I went to art school, I intended to become a comic book artist. However, within my first year, I became curious about what was unknown to me, and I declared a major in sculpture. While focused on three-dimensional work, I never lost interest in drawing; I just placed it aside for a time. During this period, I began to paint my sculptures and developed the first use of hyper-color in my work. I had always had a love of line, but it was that newfound interest in colors that pulled me back to drawing. Upon graduation, I made a return to two-dimensional work and began to teach myself the painting techniques I didn't learn while in school.
Since that time, I have found myself delving into illustration and then back into abstraction and design, incorporating paint and color everywhere I go. I have always thought of myself as a formalist. No matter what I do, I find that I'm really interested in how I build a drawing, from the underdrawing to the final brush mark, I want an impressive dynamic space on the paper.
My current work blends my interest in gay erotic illustration, references to pre-20th century painting, hard-edge painting, and the cheap animation of my youth. It exists somewhere between Tom of Finland, Francisco Goya, Ellsworth Kelly, and Scooby-Doo. The content of my work brews identity, mythology, pop culture, sex, and iconography with a touch of baroque sensationalism to create an opaque narrative. I flirt with the viewer. I want them to be taken in by the razzle-dazzle, to be confronted with pathos, anxiety, and the beauty of formalism. The work is visually challenging; it incorporates patterns for the suggestion of authoritative order, yet I disrupt these systems with shocking and vibrant color discord.
Within the work, I like to tell tales that have a point but no conclusion. I am not always the originator of these stories. Instead, I may take, steal, and appropriate stories using associated imagery filtered through my own experiences. I attempt to leave room for the viewer to bring their history and personal perceptions into the mix. I want the viewer to complete the conversation, leaving the meaning of each individual work to fluid and constant reinterpretation.
My path towards drawing went through my study of sculpture. When I went to art school, I intended to become a comic book artist. However, within my first year, I became curious about what was unknown to me, and I declared a major in sculpture. While focused on three-dimensional work, I never lost interest in drawing; I just placed it aside for a time. During this period, I began to paint my sculptures and developed the first use of hyper-color in my work. I had always had a love of line, but it was that newfound interest in colors that pulled me back to drawing. Upon graduation, I made a return to two-dimensional work and began to teach myself the painting techniques I didn't learn while in school.
Since that time, I have found myself delving into illustration and then back into abstraction and design, incorporating paint and color everywhere I go. I have always thought of myself as a formalist. No matter what I do, I find that I'm really interested in how I build a drawing, from the underdrawing to the final brush mark, I want an impressive dynamic space on the paper.
My current work blends my interest in gay erotic illustration, references to pre-20th century painting, hard-edge painting, and the cheap animation of my youth. It exists somewhere between Tom of Finland, Francisco Goya, Ellsworth Kelly, and Scooby-Doo. The content of my work brews identity, mythology, pop culture, sex, and iconography with a touch of baroque sensationalism to create an opaque narrative. I flirt with the viewer. I want them to be taken in by the razzle-dazzle, to be confronted with pathos, anxiety, and the beauty of formalism. The work is visually challenging; it incorporates patterns for the suggestion of authoritative order, yet I disrupt these systems with shocking and vibrant color discord.
Within the work, I like to tell tales that have a point but no conclusion. I am not always the originator of these stories. Instead, I may take, steal, and appropriate stories using associated imagery filtered through my own experiences. I attempt to leave room for the viewer to bring their history and personal perceptions into the mix. I want the viewer to complete the conversation, leaving the meaning of each individual work to fluid and constant reinterpretation.