statement

Art is a map that navigates me through life and is a conduit for exploration. It is a vehicle for heightened awareness and deeper numinous consciousness through mundane, commonplace things, as well as painful, incomprehensible, or awe-inspiring ones. My work can be a factual depiction, a glimpse into an alternate reality, a transmuted moment in time, an environment holding a display of examinations, or an attempt to transcend a situation I am dealing with. Through the construction of art, life breakthroughs occur.

In some cases, my art is an amplification of something I deem noteworthy. When I recognize it as, or transform it into art, it becomes a token of appreciation. It is both homage and offering. When the item happens to be discarded or dead, it is given a second life. When I encounter a  flicker of beauty that lasts for only a second, or a magnificent composition only to be seen from a specific viewpoint, it can transcend time and space through the translation of artistic practice. I think this has something to do with love.

The subjects I am concerned with are nature, anatomy, physiology, my personal experiences, and ordinary objects. Collection and self examination are two of the most important acts in my process. Drawing, photography, painting, (a combination of this media I call Translucent Layers Montages and Depth Drawings), and installation, take shape in a multi-sensory experience including found objects and mixed media. I use these to compute, transform, and transmit the discoveries I make in everyday life. I meditate upon, or perform a ritual involving a specific aspect of life in order to decipher, spend time with, and acknowledge it. The result, an entirely new creation or composite of already existing details, is my offering back to the world. This continuous reciprocal interaction is a boundless, intimate research project. In order to process life I must filter, examine, fabricate, and expel- these actions constitute my practice. My art is cartography illustrating my journeys.

bio

born:1980, Toledo, Ohio

education:

Art Academy of Cincinnati, BFA 2004

selected awards/honors

Art Academy Writer's Award, Art Academy of Cincinnati, 2004

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Krafthaus: Momentum Through the Macrocosm, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2008
Semantics: Art Boomerang, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2006
Black Floor Gallery: Vade Mecum; Collections, Studies and Specimens, Philadelphia, PA, 2005

selected group shows

Air
Gallery at Ruth's Table: Recycled, Reinvented, San Francisco, CA, 2010
ArtsPlace Gallery / Lex Arts: Momento, Lexington, KY, 2006
Hien Minh Gallery: Untitled, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2005