About

I consider myself to be primarily a narrative painter, most interested in finding awkward juxtapositions of concepts that do not easily mesh. My goal is to join these opposing concepts in a manner that is both beautiful and jarring. I often work for several months at a time on shorter, semi-illustrative paintings and balance this with larger, more time intensive works. While my oil paintings are meant to stand alone in a gallery setting, many of my watercolors are made for a large artist book.  The book that I am currently working on is an elaborate mythological epic that combines elements of Christian, Greek, and tribal ideas. It follows the lives of two opposing characters; the Orange Man and The New Savior.

My oil paintings have split into two forms. The first is the narrative painting. The narratives borrow from the logic of dreams, in that they are at times realistic and at other times fantastical. I use awkward juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated objects, meant to awaken new ideas and feelings in the viewer. Some of these are The Changeling, Baltimore House Painter Falls from a Ladder, and The Captive. Baltimore House Painter… for example is an exploration of the fear of heights, dread and boredom of a monotonous job, and how the imagination can supersede the mundane in the daily life of a house painter.

My second type of oil painting, and the most recent, is what I am calling Ruin Porn; an infatuation with crumbling but beautiful buildings. Baltimore, a richly historic city, is riddled with abandoned buildings. I have always been fascinated by crumbling, ruinous structures—the deterioration of once beautiful things. Parts of this city, sadly, are post apocalyptic. The juxtaposition of the original buildings, usually geometric, planned and orderly, invaded by the visceral tears, gaping holes, and insidious cracks, have a profound visual and psychological weight. My first painting of ruins was inspired by a trip to an island off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan. Here I saw Gukanjima Island, a small island that once functioned as a city but was completely abandoned and left to the ravages of nature. My paintings attempt to capture the effect society has wreaked on the land, and how nature slowly reclaims the space.

I draw inspiration from the paintings and drawings of, most recently, Neo Rauch, Marlene Dumas, Daniel Richter, Jorg Immendorf, and William Kentridge. Historically speaking, I pull from the ideas of the Symbolists, the Surrealists, and some of the Romantic Era painters. I am also influenced by the writings of Murakami, Kafka, Borges, Sontag, and new fiction which may loosely fall under the category of Magical Realism.

I live and work in Baltimore, Maryland. I received an MFA from the University of Arizona and a BFA from University of North Carolina, Asheville.