ARTIST'S STATEMENT The subjects in my paintings are based on my friends, family, favorite artists, and my self. I do not think of them as portraits in a traditional sense. I am more interested in fictionalizing reality, rather than representing it. The figures are often dressed strangely as an attempt to expose their internal and psychological state. They move through my head and paintings as players in a personal drama.
I want to convey a feeling of strangeness and even absurdity. These are people from another place who have just arrived and who misunderstand what they find. They find themselves in a world where people are capable of only being themselves.
On one level these paintings are an attempt to bring together my love of color with my need to draw in a fictional space. I want to join the possibilities of one with the experience of the other.
The final products are performances in my head: dressed in costumes, staging events,actors and performers, lovers and deceivers. I have begun to view paintings as a stage where mini-operas exist. I am always trying to find the area of greatest artistic freedom, while still knowing that freedom and creativity is only possible because we have a system of rules.
