Laguna College of Art + Design

All living things communicate, but humans have the most complex systems for doing

so with approximately 3000–6000 spoken languages. Our need for language is constant.

Without it, we cease to be part of a community, a culture, a group. Our cohesiveness as a

group is solidified through communication that extends beyond auditory language to include

a variety of visual languages. As an artist I create illusions that are one type of visual

language.

My current body of work is a series of paintings that juxtapose living and dead flesh,

human and animal life, beauty and grotesqueness in an attempt to capture the emotional

landscape of our fears. Such fears are experienced in the creeping psychological darkness

that surrounds our sleeping and sometimes waking nightmares; it is these fears that I attempt

to manifest in a visual language.

I strive to create both an accurate portrayal of the figure and an emotional connection

with the human psyche by pulling the viewer into dark, looming psychological states of

tension, mystery, death, alienation, and horror. I focus on fears of death, dehumanization,

loss of control, vulnerability, darkness, and the unknown in an attempt to convey the

associations between them and to place these anxieties within a context to confront them.

I am inspired by many artists who have come before me, and I seek to carve out my

voice among them. I endeavor to do this through the use of sound principles and techniques. I

want viewers to experience my paintings—enter into the narratives and emerge feeling

exposed to their own fears and energized to confront them. My thesis is the construction of

these ideas, images, and possibilities.