Artist Statement

It is the power of the mind that prevents us from experiencing true happiness and joy. What misery our minds inflict on ourselves every day can come from within us or outside of us in society. Things such as trauma and abuse, addiction, good and evil, relationships, illness, poverty and war. Basically, these things can hurt us but ultimately the mind controls how we perceive or comprehend these painful experiences. This is precisely what my mind is doing when I am creating a painting. It perceives these events and explains them through a visual format.

My mind thinks of a concept from the “struggle” and ultimately, I physically portray this human dilemma on a two dimensional canvas with paint. What visual image that eventually manifests becomes a picture, a snapshot from my mind's eye. This picture may be something, I myself have experienced. It could be an event I saw in real life. Or the image may manifest into something completely from the imagination of my own mind. Sometimes a painting may become a combination of everything, from experience, events, and imagination. My ability to arrange elements of art into a comprehensible image facilitates this process. 

I am fascinated with many progressive ideas of the mind such as telepathy, channeling, law of attraction and basically all psychic phenomena. Growing up, I disregarded all things that didn’t fit into the natural world or our human range of vision. If I didn’t see it with my own two eyes then I didn’t believe in it, with the exception of spirits. I believed in the spirit inside of us and possibly ghosts. However, I did have a strong desire to understand spirits. I think this desire is why my paintings have manifested into the portrayal of the figure. 

The figure gives me the ability to portray the human struggle but in addition to this, the human spirit. This spirit ultimately helps us to overcome the misery the mind or external events inflicts in all of us. This is how I can take a traumatic event or the human struggle and turn it into more of a positive than a negative. I can portray the misery but instead of it looking dark and twisted, it becomes something beautiful and meaningful.

The human spirit is how we have survived as a species throughout history. In addition, It is the story of individual people surviving incredible circumstances because of the belief in spirit or the will to live outweighs the terrible tragedy they are enduring. All of us have endured some type of hardship, whether inflicted from our own demise, mind, or from something external like war. What helps us to survive is the spirit, the belief that there is good and good will prevail.

The hardship you face is unique to yourself but someone somewhere, whether today or throughout history, has probably had similar problems to deal with. By viewing my work, I hope you can find ways to make light of the burdens you carry. Maybe the artwork will give you a sense of comfort or confirmation that what you are going through is something many people are experiencing today or have in the past. Maybe you will see heart ache, illness, conflict or pain through my paintings but at the same time, maybe you can see the hope and inspiration as well.