“Black has depth...you go into it...and you start seeing what you’re afraid of, you start seeing what you love and it becomes like a dream.” David Lynch

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Art must be distinct. It’s job is to ask open-ended questions that arouse curiosity and intrigue. In my mind, a successful painting is one in which viewers believe they have walked into my dream, and step out with more questions than answers. Often I am told my work provokes emotions they can’t quite understand. Like a good poem, my work isn’t meant to give you the answers; it’s meant to stick with you.

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“I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept that life doesn't make sense.” David Lynch

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My work falls under the genre of Naturalism; I am reflecting reality but as I see it, dream it, feel it. My work in Naturalism is to create a tangible world for the audience to relate to, a tangible world that has a natural depiction of the elements, that is based in the elements of reality. I use reality in my work to manipulate the story from what is real to what could be real. To question the truth in reality. I appreciate the effort of manipulating the viewers perspective in order to expose a deeper truth.

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"I don't think it was pain that made [Vincent Van Gogh] great - I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had." David Lynch

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I am drawn to the ordinary--a bowl of plums, a pair of legs, a quiet corner in a room. I sit with what has called my attention in the moment long enough until my perspective begins to shift and my understanding begins to change, like a person entering a dark room waiting for their eyes to adjust. Taking away my attachments to objects, in other words, so I can see them differently. 

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Some of my work happens quickly - the way a person might scurry to write down the most lucid elements of a dream. Others unfold over many years, a kind of conversation between old and distant friends. 

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If I am successful, I will leave viewers with a more complicated understanding of the world, to see the ordinary in a new way; to walk past and circle back; to slow down; to think about the unexpected way the light touching the face of the girl or about plums, not as fruit, but a juxtaposition symbolism throughout time and within a space on a canvas created out of my mind. 

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Mostly, though, I want to offer my viewers a sense that the moment they see is one of a great number of other moments, a narrative that extends well before and well after the one I’ve captured. 

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