Since first beginning to paint, I have- by default- treated painting as a method of self-analysis. I view it as a mechanism to pull the things from me that need to be exposed and examine them in the light. I have never painted with any intended message to the viewer. I am driven only by the thought of honestly exposing my inner world to myself: with the unintended function of displaying- on the canvas- commonalities between us all.
As for why I started painting…
As with many of us, much happened to me as a child: things I didn’t understand. When those things finally resurfaced as a teenager, I drowned the images and feelings in any chemical I could find. My life went into a dark spiral for two decades, until I found myself again, amid the pigments, hog-hair, wooden sticks, and cotton that I use to make sense of the world.
What started as a desperate attempt to put my inner turmoil into a visual form I could deal with has since become the lens I use to understand the world around me and my place in it. I make spontaneous marks and decipher the stories that come to me (and the evolving story is always paramount to the image) as honestly as I can. That honesty is why I think people relate to the pieces as they do.
