about

My figurative imagery investigates the ubiquity of photography and aesthetic qualities of glitch that occur in digital and analog communication as metaphors for psychological isolation, loneliness, and desire. Transcribing benign and dramatic inadvertent visual flaws observed in contemporary and historical lens-based images of people, my paintings and drawings collectively address instances of fragmentation, warping, distortion, and double-exposure as emblems for the incongruousness of the human psyche. Co-opting pixelated selfies, frozen excerpts of online meetings, found film negatives, and lagging video-clips encountered on social media as primary visual referents, my work attempts to convey the unease of being a consumer of images in the digital age: moving perpetually between a sense of connection and alienation.

As inanimate simulations, the subjects who inhabit photos and videos deny us any reciprocal interest in our own inner-life, and are yet capable of beckoning us surreptitiously to examine our own mental state. A meditation on this phenomenon, my depictions of faces frequently incorporate the direct-gaze of my subject: harkening the subconscious perceptual lens of semi-trance states, themes of magical realism, and notions of the uncanny. Occupying taciturn, dazed, or enamoured mental zones, the people I depict are situated in un-bound spaces; amidst hybrid forms and repeating motifs of a prosaic, frequently arbitrary disposition akin to that which might be encountered during a daydream, or a zoom meeting where attendees are temporarily frozen or partially disembodied. Whether they are in a state of reverie, disassociation, sardonic rumination, or hedonistic obsession is unclear. In this way, my characterizations of faces and figures are devoid of coherent settings or explicit narratives: engrossed in indistinct, latently familiar gestures — neither sensual, nor mechanical.