Laguna College of Art + Design

Steven Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, in The Grand Design, coined the term “model-dependent realism”, claiming that everything we know about reality is from observations based on models. They believe that different world picture models pr…

The formal elements of my work respond to conflicting visual dualities in water. Water is a substance that can be both transparent and opaque. It allows its mysteries to stay hidden, or to loom eerily beneath its glassy surface. Realism defines thes…

Our ethics, logic, and aesthetics are highly dependent on the environment to which we belong. In one community such as a country, family, ethnicity, or generation, people may hold beliefs that feel like “common sense” to the people who b…

My experiences, memories, dreams, and ideas are externalized and made lyrical through my oil paintings on canvas. I respond to motifs and subjects from art history, and this body of work is especially informed by the Baroque period and artists inclu…

The culmination of this body of works is centered on my experiences. The paintings of this series follow the story of my life at this time in the past and the present. I want to depict places and people that mark a specific time and place in my life…

Through my study of landscape and portraiture I have found that there are many ways of interpreting and composing a representation of the world. This body of work represents earthquakes and disasters with the knowledge that I have gained from my stu…

My recent body of work delves into the peculiar absurdity of my American experience, using iconic county fair imagery to engage with the excesses, hopes, violence, and delusions pervasive in American culture. Humor becomes my tool to navigate and co…

This piece was included in the Society of Illustrators 63rd Exhibition.

Instinct represents an exploration of an inner wilderness by way of an outer one, premised on my beliefs about the continuity of these seemingly disparate landscapes. This body of work is meant to trace the organic growth and evolution of a project …

There is power in rhythmic images. This series of artworks is meant to discover the presence of patterns in a project that could be seen as introspective and exploratory. Sewing patterns, patterned fabrics and papers, charcoals, and soft pastels ble…

Solitude is something that resonates with all of us, whether we like it or not. Philosophers and psychologists have spent ages studying how we respond to it. My thesis paintings capture my own feelings and reflections on solitude. In my art, I often…

For me, the word “artist” is interchangeable with the word “seeker.” I see myself as having been on this path for a lifetime, and what keeps me moving forward—adding skills, learning theory, studying history, observing …

Meta-Figures is a series of paintings using the human figurative form as a means of expressing the subconscious. These singular figures and faces are created from my imagination using an intuitive process where one mark leads to another. The fo…

My large scale drawings use depictions of the human figure to address the influence of society and electronic media on personal versus public identity. The messages that the media communicates have affected my opinion of myself, as well as my though…

In the basin of a hidden valley, a skewed rock pile breaks the silhouette of distant blue mountains. The already-fallen sun leaves a green sky in its wake. Without the heat of day to hold it back, a brisk chill quickly rises from the sandy ground. T…

Passive-Aggressive is a series of six drawings and six paintings that focus on voyeurism and repressed male fantasies. It should also be seen as a kind of visual diary that records two years of struggle, trial and error in a post-graduate painting p…

I think of my paintings as an extension of street photography. The photograph has had a long-standing tradition of being at war with the painting world; however, I found that it is used in my work beyond the traditional means of reference, and is so…

Growing up in the Mormon religion, I had the unusual experience of being taught about a female deity. While many Mormon women find the idea of a female deity empowering, some are disturbed that she is nearly invisible within Mormon religious discour…