Artist Statement

 I work with fragments from places traveled that carry sentiment.  Invoices, photographs, letters, all becoming a foundation for a final product that is assembled into an experienced story.  Perhaps pieces contain fragments of hope.  Atonement.  Grief.  Unrequited love.  Whimsy.  They were each and every one indicative of my emotional state during the initial compsotion of each piece, lending an authenticity.  The human condition.

I am interested in the emotional weight carried by ordinary objects and the way memory attaches itself to physical artifacts over time. The materials used in the work originate from places I have personally visited and documented, later returning as altered forms within the finished compositions. I maintain an ongoing archive of photographs, receipts, and collected ephemera that gradually reappear throughout evolving series.

Nothing begins on a blank surface. I build through layering, obscuring, repainting, and revision, allowing each image to emerge slowly through accumulation rather than direct depiction. Accuracy matters less to me than atmosphere and the emotional presence I have at the moment I create each piece...there is the sensation that an image has already lived a life before arriving on the surface.

My background in technical instruction in the United States Air Force continues to influence the structure of my work. Though emotionally driven, the process itself is methodical within each series. I approach materials through experimentation, systems, repetition, and controlled disruption while still leaving room for play, instability, and improvisation.

I am drawn to the tension between structure and collapse, intimacy and fragmentation, control and erosion. Living and working in New Orleans continues to shape this sensibility. The city’s atmosphere, ritual, ornament, layered history, and visible accumulation of time reinforce my interest in surfaces that hold both beauty and instability simultaneously.  Rather than depicting reality directly, I am interested in creating the feeling that something was once present and is now being partially remembered.