Artist Statement

As a child; drawing came to have great importance to me.  I was no more gifted than any of the other kids but I kept at and kept at till it became part of my identity and by the age six; I was known by my family and friends as an “artist”.  Coming from a home where I was criticized relentlessly and told point blank that I was going to grow up to be in prison; I found drawing to be the only source of validation in my young life and thus, clang on to it desperately.  After my mother would literally pick me up and use me as a human shield to protect herself from my stepfather’s drunken rage, I would draw.  After the bullies would rage against me for being different, I would draw.  Art was an escape as much as it was my only source of confidence and sense of identity.  Because of this; even today I don’t know who I am without it.  My upbringing has left me with a hyper-critical mind and a vast hole in my heart so that the only way I know how to function is by seeking some sort of validation through creative processes.  That is who I am and why I do what I do.

My current body of work often explores a variety of complicated and intense issues ranging from body image & sex work to trauma & religion.  While my tendency to pick at “social scabs” speaks more to the contemporary side of the spectrum; I also on occasion find great peace in simply devoting myself to honoring a certain animal or person with my art in ways that are far more classically influenced.  Regardless of the direction my work takes, there is always a significant investigative component to it and this influence stems from my 6 years working as a professionally licensed Private Investigator.  In an unorthodox circular feedback loop; my lifetime of figure studies and life-drawing equipped me with the ability to disassociate from a subject in a way that allows me to view a person place or thing with great objectivity.  This highly developed capacity for objective observation served as a powerful foundation for my formal investigative training and subsequent investigative work; which then in turn provided me with skills that radically impacted my approach to visual art.  While objectivity is important to my work, the lengthy and demanding artistic processes I engage in will often force me to continually reconcile this dispassionateness with the powerful emotions that drive me to make art in the first place.

While I love working in a range of mediums from painting to ceramics; my current practice focuses heavily on Bronze as the final material for my work.  Bronze might be an ancient medium but thanks to recent technological developments, casting metal has become more accessible for artists than ever before and with this accessibility comes the opportunity to push the boundaries of lost wax casting to new levels.  Innovations in mold making materials like new silicones and ceramic slurries allow for the exploration of techniques previously unattainable; enabling artists to exploit this medium in new and creative ways.  It is this world of new possibilities that draws me to bronze as the perfect vehicle for artistic experimentation and expression.

Several contemporary artists have had great influence on my work like Fred Wessel: known for his masterful egg tempura paintings, Lloyd Glasson: an amazing 20th century figurative sculptor, Stephen Brown: a master of oil color, Nathan Orosco: an dynamic experimental sculptor with mastery over vast array of art making techniques, and contemporary bronze sculptors T. Barny and Nichola Theakston.  Artists Richard Serra and Tony Cragg occupy special places amongst my influences in that I often find myself engaged in imaginary conversations with them; debating intensely over the philosophical differences in our approaches to contemporary art (usually at critical points in my creative process).  In addition to the above mentioned influences; I am also somewhat obsessed with 19th century French art and heavily inspired by techniques from the classical & renaissance periods.  Overall, Edgar Degas probably influences my work more than any other single artist, both as a painter and as a sculptor.  When in doubt; I look to Degas…