STATEMENT OF WORK

My work exists in some ways as an embellished timeline. Based on the notion that life is a series of workable moments, I have taken and altered images from my past and present in an effort to explore the malleable nature of memory and the ways in which my anxiety manifests itself. 

Older moments that were otherwise dull become imbued with nostalgia; people and places that I may never return to are preserved in some way — made ageless and frozen in time. Each painting serves as a way of saying “I remember you fondly, but not well.” The works hang onto the past, or a memory of the past, which is distorted by time and becomes muddled with each attempt to return to it.

As the points of origin for these paintings become more distant, the work begins to dismantle itself in some ways. The further back in time the idea for a work comes from, the looser the paintings become. Splotchy brushwork that softens otherwise hard edges lends itself to the exploration of the fluctuating nature of memory, allowing the works to breathe with a life once lived, despite the inherently static nature of painting.

Works that are based on more recent events are more tightly rendered, and often touch on themes of anxiety that have become more prevalent to me in my daily life as I grow older. Fears about change, the weight of one's emotions, and compulsions I have are expressed commedically in an effort to alleviate the weight they carry. Something as gruesome as being crushed by an anvil is offset by the joy of finding a dollar on the ground, a shelf full of cleaning supplies in a bathroom does nothing to clean ones eyes, and driving in your dream car might end with you wrapped around a tree.