Bio
A little over a year without a drink, and I was danger of relapsing; I wasn't sober, exactly, just not drinking. I listened to AA sages and novices alike, but the message always felt distant, idealistic. In a moment of desperation, painting found me. I suddenly had a way to apply, in real time, the ideologies of recovery. When the world felt too big, I focused on the next line. This evolved into painting abstract “scapes" that took the sense of scale that I struggled with emotionally and turned it into a more intentional artistic endeavor. The “scapes" are like mountains, fields, and sun all smashed in a glass slide. They allow me to invest my time in the value of small things. If I have a philosophy, its only tenant is looking closely. I had a mural in my room as a kid; I searched among the leaves for faces. If the leaves could be faces, I could someday leave. Powerful, abstract logic compels me. The seas don't need to part; I just need a foot in the doors of perception.
Ever look at solid wood door as a kid and see strange faces there? It's one of the ways that children make the world their own. A tree isn't a tree, and a door isn't just a door. My collection Some Kind of Scapes brims with bright, abstract dreamscapes so lush that there's no single right way to look at them. Inspired by the child like freedom of being able to make the world our own (i.e., looking at a table and seeing a spaceship), these paintings employ a radical synthesis of shapes, styles, and semblances to create moments of discovery, the sort where you might tug on a friend's sleeve and ask, “Can you see it too?" These paintings, at heart, encourage playfulness, looking closely, and the importance of sharing our discoveries, no matter how small.