Artist Statement

My artwork can be split into two main bodies: object-portraits and surreal works. Both bodies are deeply intimate and intuitive, drawing from daily encounters. The work as a whole is an act of magic, where personification and curiosity are abundant.

My imagery is collected like keepsakes: the character “The Lost Cowboy” (an ode to Magritte’s “The Lost Jockey”), the stars Arcturus and Vega who accompany me on walks, poetic tags from local graffiti artists, found objects, playing cards, migrating geese, keyholes, and the bricks that build the city I live in. There’s often a sense of humor or playfulness, although it is never displayed without an equal sense of seriousness.

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The first body of my work can be best described as sentimental portraits of “object-subjects”. In philosophy, a subject can be described as an observer who experiences while an object is something observed that does not experience. My work paints objects as inhabiting both roles simultaneously, as literal unfeeling objects that also embody a level of sentience through lived experience and their connections to us.

I’m deeply fascinated by the intimate relationships we form with objects, particularly found objects that are otherwise overlooked in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Through bold, centralized compositions and sometimes outright eliminating location, I force the viewer to acknowledge these object-subjects head on.

A clock is devoid of a setting, necessitating the viewer to hone in on the whimsical wooden face or the missing numbers. A metal pole that once held a sign now wears the sentimental Sharpie statement “I Still Think About You Every Day” while blocking your view into the courtyard behind it. The viewer is left with no choice but to reflect on this half comical, half heavyhearted sentiment. Is it that the author misses someone from their past, or does the pole miss its sign? Perhaps both.

The work is a bold act of grounding, prompting viewers to carefully survey not just the work but their everyday surroundings, reflecting on personal value systems and how much we stop to pay attention to the little things rather than consistently just going through the motions, unaware and discontent.

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My second body of work consists of vibrant, surreal paintings and drawings half-rooted in reality. These works explore themes of loneliness, dissociation, fantasy, curiosity, storytelling, and nomadic archetypes using intuitively chosen symbols and signifiers sourced from a lifetime of continuous observation, reflection, and learning. The work asks playful questions of the viewer and implores them to decipher a narrative, with sometimes given and sometimes missing clues.

Two Lost Cowboys ride horseback through saturated skies as if on ground, dutifully toward locations that the viewer isn’t privy to. They are viewed through large brick windows that are keyhole-shaped, offering the viewer half-obscured sights and an illogical, almost dream-like, situation. The titles “the beginning…” and “…the end” both solve and further provoke the elusive narrative. This is further explored by switching which order the works are installed.

A walking trail has been carefully crafted to form a keyhole shape, inferring a sense of wonder and magic concerning the natural world. There are no subjects except for the landscape, and the emptiness becomes a point of intrigue. Is there a subject around the bend, out of sight? Is there something to be found at the end of the trail, or is the “treasure” the trail itself?