STATEMENT OF WORK

I make paintings of people at leisure in sites connected to the mythos of Southern California. While leisure is often associated with idleness, I find richness in the revolutionary spirit of non-productivity.  My figures are often lounging around pools in lush grottos and are layered with the complexities of exposure that come with public vulnerability and bathing suits.  This work overlaps the social and the private, the intimate and the anonymous all at once. 

Born and raised in Southern California, I am continuing to learn how my home region has its own mythography around freedom. I look to local histories to fuel my paintings.  Countercultural dreams have led many to seek out alternative lifestyles in California—being a nudist in the desert, a spiritual guru, a celebrity living a life of luxury—and their anti-tradition, radical impulses guide my work. I combine the hot, earth orange of the deserts and the toothpaste green of swimming pools; sites that are rich in leisure history.  I aspire to enjoy the pleasures of non-productivity with a lack of self-consciousness like the figures in my paintings. 

I started sculpting frames for some of my paintings to act as a bridge between the flat fantasy and the dimensional world, suggesting a closer connection to the built (fabricated) environment. At the same time, they act as an ornamental reminder that a painting is also a fantasy.