create,destroy:



My goals as an artist are twofold, manifesting themselves on both a personal and societal level, and often merging the two realms from a subversive perspective. My intent in the personal sphere is to reveal the inner workings and processes of my subconscious in order to take steps of healing and personal growth. Externally, I seek to shed light on world events, consensus social standards, popular mores, and cultural norms in order to inspire the viewer to escape from constructed knowledge and to question assumptions of reality.



My intent with all of the mediums I use is to open up a new and unfamiliar mental/emotional territory within the viewer through the use of contradiction, ambiguity, hyperbole, and the grotesque. With this shocking imagery, I attempt to reach a point at which logical and emotional certainties waver, taste loses its bearings, and familiar realities warp into disorienting paradoxes.



My current body of work, which encompasses the different mediums of oil painting, photography, graphite/mixed media collage, and sometimes tattoos, is focused primarily on the phenomena of violence, alienation, fear, and the denial of death in modern society. It is also an exploration of the conflict and cooperation between various opposing forces on both microcosmic and macrocosmic levels. The imagery I utilize to convey this sociopolitical critique often takes the form of abstract metaphors.



I have a strong appreciation for the discipline of life drawing based on direct visual observation, and for the fundamentals of accurate rendering in representational art. I strive for realism in my work in order to lend a sense of photographic concreteness, or credibility, to the often intangible concepts I wish to convey.