My work walks a line between painting a visual representation of an object or narrative and expressing its physical qualities. The work is not landscape although it does carry a sense of place. Instead, I splice components from different experiences and times at contrasting angles creating a whole new sense of place and space. The lines and planes cause movement creating a narrative quality in the work. Certain colors bring associations with smells (algae, grass or mud) combined with sights (water crashing) which are contrasted with a nearly clear image (a figure or a mountain in the distance) which engages one's sense of touch somewhere between the senses and the mind. In articulating this place, separateness between things becomes superficial and fundamentally non-existent. These expressions move between metaphor and sensuality and seek to elicit in the viewer an actual experience of the place, figure or story. Finally, poetic notions add a softness and touches of humor keep a vital presence alive in the work.
 
My philosophical interests include various authors such as naturalists David Abram, Diane Ackerman and Farley Mowat, semiologists including Jaques Lacan, Roland Barthes, Jean-Paul Sarte and phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl and Jim Ruddy to name a few. Anything that explores perception, language and nature generally holds great appeal for me. Early Chinese and Eastern philosophies effected me early on in my life and still can be seen floating on the peripheral of the work. I am an avid fan of physics as well and find various theories in the field inspiring and augmenting my work, most central of which revolve around the birth and understanding of the universe, dark matter and the formation and movement of stars. Nature itself is the core of what I study through my work, the colors, smells and sounds around me pop in and out of my pieces as they would on a hike in the mountains or walk through a city. Human nature is an ongoing theme as well, humor and humanity struggling with one another continually, psychology and the learning process continually evolving and hopefully sharing the spark to seek, know and grow.
 
I find that my pursuit requires me to be a little more verbose in my vernacular in order to fully embody my experience. The place I am working from is somewhere between an idea, a texture, a movement, a time, a place, a feeling that we all have and occasionally notice. Pretend you are walking and it starts to rain. The rain becomes more intense, jerking your umbrella, which you pull close obscuring your vision ahead of you. Your senses are raw, you hear (hearing pounds the eardrum but also creates the sense of a picture in the mind) and feel pounding wind on your face, bringing tears, your muscles are engaged and active lest the umbrella be pulled away and you smell more of everything around you because the moisture opens it all up to be felt. Just for a second, you are able to tilt the umbrella and peer out to see the most beautiful series of moments as nature dances before you, all your senses forgetting just for a moment they are separate, then it is gone as you smile that you caught it, the wholeness of everything, for just a second. The rain stops, your guard is down and there you know what it feels like to want to hold onto that moment forever, you know what it is to be human. Quietly you realize the words you think in that moment are only slightly suitable to describe the experience. Talking about any artwork can be difficult to say the least because at the end of the process we are using words or paint to describe or trigger another type of experience entirely.
 
As far as my process goes, I am a gatherer and form my relationships in advance from pieces of the world and my senses. I build by bringing the initial ideas and concerns with me then I move them back and forth like waves finding their necessary companions until I finally feel like I am embodying the feeling or concept I was pursuing.