Artist Statement

Over the years I’ve made an effort to have creative endeavors that are separate from my work as a designer, and to stay connected to my fine arts education. These personal explorations have evolved into mixed media pieces. I approach each piece using a palette composed of a variety of materials including canvas, vintage books and photographs, acrylics and art papers—transforming old objects into new art. With acrylic, I am most attracted to the immediacy and spontaneity of a medium that moves quickly from brush to surface—similar to the the spontaneity of life. rather than explaining a piece of work, it can speak for itself, and whatever it says to the viewer is the right message because there isn’t a wrong or a right. Each person takes something different.

I want to capture within my work the strong sense of nostalgia, in all its forms, that I’ve experienced since childhood. I take inspiration many times from the Victorian era during the dawning of photography, where so many portraits are void of expression and emotion. My current work begins as a curiosity and an intrigue when a vintage portrait speaks to me, and evolves into an expose—a secret moment in history—that conveys the thoughts, emotions of the person which now lies upon my canvas. Often included are quotes that begin the process of wonder and suggestion. The process of my art is intuitive rather then intellectual—each piece is an expressive visual statement that reaches not only into the past, but into the thoughts and feelings of myself and the viewer. A narrative only appearing after the fact, as if by accident or quite subconsciously, symbolically bringing the broken and torn pieces together.