According to scientists, our first two decades seem to pass as slowly as the whole of the rest of our lives, so that our early experiences carry vastly more psychic weight than those of adulthood. If this is true then all the landscapes, whispers, meteor showers and memories I’ve witnessed have left their indelible mark on my work.
In my new work, many of the figures are gatekeepers to a place of transformation that can pose the threat of danger, provide refuge and/or provoke adventure. They are harbingers to be taken as an omen or sign of things yet to come.
Painting allows me a complex and subtle language to communicate my ideas. I am fascinated by trying to resolve how to merge pictorial narrative into dynamic painted ground. I paint the space where memory and reality overlap because I exist there. These works are concerned with how memories double the space of your existence. The paintings embrace the indelible imprint of people and places that have gone before me. An absence can be a highly charged presence in one’s life. The ghost still lingers. Yet memories are elusive, so in a sense, I rewrite my personal history through the work.