I see painting as a process to reveal how we devour images, construct a gaze, and archive memories. We each have patterns of looking and things we expect to see. For me, each painting is a set of circumstances – an abstract event where things meet. The relatively large scale of my work is tethered to the scale of my body – I see it as a confrontation, or an encounter.

Through painting, I pay attention to my personal visual distortions – we see what we know, and might be blind to what else is there. Because so much of our images and our experiences in general can be meticulously designed, I pay attention to disillusionment and confusion of value, as well as aggressive aspects of control and scams. I am interested in sensing movement, particularly in digital space, or in virtually augmented space, where we have to be alert to what is real and what is an illusion. In particular, I reflect on the memory of zooming in and out, shifting focus, and breaking attention. I am also sensitive to the memories my body holds of larger scale machines that have become ingrained in the way we imagine movement (e.g. planes and cars). One of the ways I explore this is through predictive action, where the relationship between two or more objects prompts us to automatically imagine forces of warping, dodging, falling, or other actions to happen immediately next.

Tricks and distortions like predators and prey in contemporary environments and the self-destructive and dehumanizing ways we look for “optimal” ways to function are themes that show up in how I choose to paint. I am guided by my desire to hold together a memory, my need to remember in hyperreal clarity, and my expectation for my mind to work like data storage. This reflection on the mechanics of my own memory is part of being hyperaware of how I function in relation to my fears of contemporary life. These include the fear of not knowing enough, not understanding enough, and of the loss of play as I get older.

I create abstract paintings through a process that varies for each piece. I digitally modify imagery and respond to a physical canvas – using dioramas, automatic drawing, and digital collage through different parts of my process. My paintings reflect on the idea of an image; collage is a way for me to reuse and recycle marks and images until their origin point is lost. I see space as a character with just as much agency as these objects or images. It informs the way I develop the picture as I ask: how many things are in a space, what things are not seen in a space, what things should be there that are not?