Artist Statement



I use color like a knife. Segmenting dissecting redefine, constantly searching for what makes a shape or look. What makes something that defines a figure or portrait. What subjects look like? Most of my work is based off of celebrities and figures in the press. All of my subjects come with certain preconceived notions attached and I search these out through the use of color, texture or light.

I work in oil paint, specifically for it tonal quality. The pure pigment used with and archival medium, applied to a snow-white ground, achieves a certain level of light penetration that makes my work seem like stain glass in full sunlight. That theme of light penetrating seems to travel throughout my work. Whether I am painting objects or like my most recent work concentrating on figure and portraits.

I use light to define the color and to make a skeletal structure to break open the emotional connections of subjects and viewers. If you examine someone and see the colors that dance across their skin as light passes over and through it, you will understand where my painting is coming from. It is just a moment a glance into that instant when the light danced on the flesh of another human being.

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