My current paintings present domestic sites as areas of existential drama made manifest by jarring formal elements. These sites act as a metaphor for how our domestic spaces act as a mirror of our internal selves. I feel that in moments of isolation the familiar becomes resonate with unseen fears and desires that haunt us. I intend that the viewer be given an opportunity to gain greater self knowledge through this relationship between occupant and dwelling.

Formally, I employ various painting methods to create dynamic compositions whose subject matter is somewhat familiar. In preparation, collage becomes an important aid for larger more elaborate compositions. Spatial relationships become important in disorienting the viewer inside a domestic and therefore familiar space. Through impasto and handling, objects that are “closer” are at odds with their predictable placement so that the viewer will become disoriented or uncomfortable. While the application of paint is deliberate, I use bright and varied colors to make even the architectural features of these spaces unique. The vignette and other strategies of framing occur often in my work. Through framing the work I hope to drain the work of any implied narrative. As in the vignette, the “reader” generates a narrative, as the “author” I hope to call attention to a moment that, although artificial, may present us with an opportunity for insight into our own dramas. All of these devices serve to craft an atmosphere that exploits a relationship between the clear and uncertain.

In a culture that is concerned with the value and significance of material objects to construct a vision the of self, it is my opinion that the most important of those objects is the one in which we dwell. For me, domestic spaces are sites that distort the self in such a fashion as to show the most important truths about our fears, desires and unavoidable realities. I present in my paintings a vision of the domestic whose occupant is the viewer; distant, aloof and curiously engaged in a process of deciphering meaning from seemingly arbitrary arrangement of symbols and relics. In this vision, I want the viewer to respond emotionally to the alarming isolation and molestation of the most intimate and familiar of objects, the home.