ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings are windows into my inner fantasy world, filled with ocean born girls and rabbits in interesting situations. I like to explore the deep shadows and brilliant highlights found in forms to really give them a stylized edge. I primarily enjoy working with darker colors to match the often darker themes seen in my portfolio. There's something profound about the more sinister and somber side of the world that speaks to me, and it fuels me to create work that stands out in the crowd.

A major source of visual inspiration comes from the Old Masters of the Renaissance and from the linear monastery artists of Medieval Europe. The importance of textual illustration was remarkably higher back then, and it's something that I fell in love with from a young age after reading religious art history books. I like to think that my work embodies elements from both eras of visual history.

I’m always sketching characters, both real and fictional. I’m absolutely fascinated by unusual and historical clothing, and that resonates in all aspects of my art as I try to fit these fantastic characters into scenarios that make sense. These characters are often telling one of my many stories. While I try to create an easily readable image for the viewer, there's also a wild sense of inner happiness because my work is filled with little secrets that viewers might not pick up on immediately. In that sense, my work overall can sometimes be a bit of a puzzle.

I don’t like to be pigeonholed as an artist of a specific medium or subject. My art is constantly evolving as I discover unique ways to manipulate media and find new avenues into all of the enchanting places within my imagination. I would like to see my future projects evolve from primarily two dimensional into a world that also invokes language from three dimensional work. I have a lot of visual stories to share with the world and I'll never stop bringing them to life.