Contemporary Figurative Artist

Artist Statement

 

I make figurative paintings about the strange space between what we see and what we understand

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I have always been drawn to vintage photographs, especially anonymous snapshots from the 1960s and 1970s. I love their colors and the ordinary evidence of a life: families beside cars, children in backyards, women who dressed for an afternoon out. These photographs suggest a world that is familiar, nostalgic and reassuring. But a photograph can only shown what happened in front of the camera. Everything beyond the frame is unknown.

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I use these fragments of imagined lives as starting points for paintings that explore the tension between idyllic appearances and the uneasiness that can exist beneath them. I alter, recombine and reimagine people, places and objects, often obscuring faces or displacing familiar elements. The resulting scenes remain recognizable, but slightly off.

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I work primarily in acrylic, building images through translucent glazes, matte washes and layered imagery. Color and ordinary objects draw the viewer into the scene, while visual contradictions, symbolism and dry humor complicate what initially appears familiar.

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My paintings are not intended to provide a single narrative. They are invitations to look past the picture—to wonder what happened before the moment we see, what happens afterward, and what might have been happening just outside the frame.

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I want my paintings to feel like a memory that is beautiful, but not entirely trustworthy.