I am drawn to the subtle and the macabre. My work touches on darkness because I believe our darkness, or shadow self, is a valuable resource worth exploration. There is a doorway between light and dark, and I like to play in-between the two worlds coexisting within us.

Life is a conversation between our internal life, and the everyday world we must contend with. The universe I have created is a place where my characters are living a parallel life WITH us. They look out at us as alive, confused, and as in wonder as we are.

My earliest artistic influences the art in children’s novels like Finn Family Moomintroll, Alice in Wonderland, and Wind in the Willows. These books gave generations a distinctive visual understanding of the intimate worlds these authors and illustrators created. I also loved comics, specifically The Addams Family, Bloom County, and Peanuts. This beautiful medium is ingenious at portraying complexity in simple lines.

Later on I was drawn to painters like Francis Bacon, Modigliani, Manet, and Egon Schiele. These painters were able to capture the weight of being human, while creating a timeless visual moment of a different time and place; they are as alive now as they were then.

I love the macabre. It is a place we are not necessarily encouraged to explore, but what I found there wasn’t grotesque, it was beautiful. The hidden and forgotten parts of myself I found there were filled with story and redemption.

Several years ago my friend Travis Monroe and I created a video that played in a tiny side room in the Bonfire Gallery where I had a solo exhibition. It explains what darkness means to me, and why I am so drawn exploring the realms of our interior life.

CLICK BELOW TO WATCH THE VIDEO

life.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl6_uzwnqRs