Statement
In my work, I spontaneously explore the anxious and funny ways in which we litter our lives with the artifacts of our desires. Our buildings are covered with satellite dishes, extending our reach at the same time that we withdraw to the interior. Pipes, holes, and structures coat a radiant landscape, their presence proof of their necessity. As I make my pictures, it turns out that the landscape is a little bleak. Color expresses the tensions, exuberant and moody. We work away at keeping things running, tinkering with and adjusting our antennae. Our technology is both a prosthetic and an armor, and maybe even a weapon, but fundamentally it is something we put between ourselves and the world, in order to mediate it. This is a strange time, dark and contingent.
I use differing media to suit my needs as they happen. These days, resonant color is important, and so water media and layers of transparent ink are important. I have been spending a lot of time in the print shop. Although printmaking has a reputation for being a very technical way of making art, it is in fact a wonderful field for improvisation. I make monoprints in particular because the technique seems to reward experimentation. I work with drips and smudges, with blended color and varied surfaces. Importantly, this adds to the visual richness I can achieve, and to the surprise and tension I can create between what is depicted and the way it is depicted. With my prints, drawings, and paintings invention leads me to unexpected places, materially, spatially, and therefore expressively.
Above and beyond anything else, I look for an organization of visual forces and humming color, color that seems to glow from within the image, and that feels capable of the wonder and unease I feel in the face of our complicated world. The imagery in my work, while typically not pre-planned, is thematic. I’m drawn to things that can hint at the often sad, funny, and absurd ways we humans try to control the worlds around us and within us.
Bio
I was born and grew up in Philadelphia. I went to Pomona College, where I got a BA in studio art. I had the fantastic opportunity to do an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in between college and getting my MFA at the Meadows School of Art at SMU. From start to finish, I got to study with inspiring artists and educators. Now I live with my wife and children in Rochester, NY, and teach at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY.