As an artist I seek to illuminate rather than obfuscate with my art. This is true no matter what medium my muses guide me toward. Through constant work over the past twenty years I have learned to push past self-imposed plateaus and to go full force into whatever interests I have artistically, always eschewing style for internal revelation instead. I grew up in a family of artists and craftspeople, visiting the sets of various films my father worked on as lead sculptor. I’m indebted to his influence as an artist, particularly his work ethic and aesthetic revolving around the human body, and to my maternal grandmother as well, an early abstract expressionist painter who worked tirelessly to eke out some acclaim in the American southeast. In my teens I became certain that I would follow the path of a fine artist, and I have spent every bit of my time and energy over the past twenty years bending my future towards that goal, always striving for personal excellence in my painting.
In previous years my work tended toward portraiture, landscape and allegorical arrangements as I gained proficiency in rendering realistic scenes. Studying and teaching in the classical vein at Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy gave me vital insight into the practices of traditional atelier master level work, which served as a useful seedbed for my creative journey afterward. While continuing to grow as an artist I also grew as a storyteller in my continued painting career, endeavoring to imbue my compositions with narrative pathos as well as powerful command of the brush. My eyes are now open to many new avenues for crosspollination when it comes to incorporating the visual-storytelling language of graphic novels into realistic fine art paintings. Where once I felt hemmed-in by imagined boundaries, I now find ease in my abilities to scale those walls of personally imposed limitations, and I owe much of this freedom to the past few years’ worth of branching out and experimentation. Though I love to push outside my comfort zone and test different, diverse media, oil painting will always be home for me.
My proclivities forever lead me towards realistic art featuring figures, narratives, and symbolism, and this is where I intend to tread the line between comfortable and challenged. I wish to constantly engage viewers with realities, myths, dreams, and experiences heretofore never yet witnessed upon a canvas. No matter what artistic endeavors I involve myself in I always position myself as a painter first and foremost, for the function of artist as a communicator is timeless; and the ability to artfully represent what resides in the mind is an incredibly potent, and necessary role. I sincerely believe in the transmission of the artist’s mind across the flat surface and into the viewer’s consciousness as one of the true magical achievements of humanity.