Statement

Life is story. Our story. Someone else’s story.

I often wondered what it is that drives me to create, what forms the impulse to put pencil to paper, or brush to canvas. As humans, we possess an almost genetic predisposition to make sense of our world through the form of storytelling. Whether those stories are to understand a natural or societal event, or a way to show something about ourselves and our experiences, it’s about the narrative. We’ve carved them into our temples, into inaccessible rock faces, painted them on our ceramics, and shown them in countless portraits. The impulse to tell tales is part of what makes us human.

I’ve learned that emotion is the catalyst to a great story. Emotion invites you to gawk at a beautiful sunset, to be apprehensive about the dark house on the corner, to cry with the grieving woman. Emotion invites empathy, invites the viewer to participate in the world of the painting, and not just to simply gaze from the corner as an uninvolved spectator. With each piece I create, I try to embody within it an overarching emotion. If I can achieve this, if I can make the viewer a participant. I can provide to them a doorway into the world of the painting and let them experience the story within.