Invasion, 2022, 30x40, oil on canvas
INTRO
Hello. I’m an oil painter who arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2021. Moving across the country from a quaint seaside village in Massachusetts and my 300-year-old purple house with the white picket fence, wasn’t easy. But I’ve also lived in Connecticut (my birthplace), Rhode Island, North Carolina, Ohio, New York, and New Jersey, so at least I know how to pull up stakes, replant, and root again. Years were spent in a charming ocean community with hard-working fishermen and a nearby artist colony; a Victorian brownstone neighborhood with a vibrant LGBTQ culture in Boston; “Havana on the Hudson” with Cuban exiles on the Palisades Cliffs overlooking Manhattan; an Appalachian river city entwined with coal miners and Amish Mennonites; a densely-forested mountain town near the multiracial Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation; and a sprawling southern city during the height of the Civil Rights movement. As the next “landing stop,” my long-time dream was to make New Mexico my home. Not only was I immediately drawn to the natural beauty of its landscape, but also to the Pueblo communities and their unique and inspirational culture.
Threads, 2022, 30x40, oil on canvas
PROCESS
Whether it’s the maddening crowd, an individual’s psyche, or our shared history, values, and connections, I’ve always wondered what makes this American society and culture tick. My curiosity about people and places, as well as our collective behavior naturally led me to use the figurative form as my subject. Starting a painting usually begins by wading through a lot of “visual clutter” to find either inspiration, or references. I’ll look at any source - either highbrow or lowbrow, mainstream or counterculture - while staying mindful of the landmines of appropriation. My approach is to stylize the images with a “Pop Art” sensibility meaning, there’s some combination of irony or humor, embedded textural objects, outlines around graphic colors, or odd juxtapositions of images like in collage.