I was born in the summer of '79, and six weeks later experienced my first intercontinental plane ride. I've been hooked on travel ever since. I learned to walk in Saudi Arabia, stayed with a tribal village family in India, visited a civil war refugee camp in Sri Lanka, had my palm read in Nepal, trekked through gorgeous green fields in England, and got lost in the Louvre. What I love about travelling is that it forces you to find a sense of rootedness within yourself - the perfect lesson in non-attachment. In many ways, the physical voyage runs parallel to the inner journey, each realm of adventure enhancing the other. Placing yourself out of context often helps you see yourself more clearly, and I try to maintain that percept- iveness in my daily life.

I grew up mostly in Florida, graduating high school in 1997 with numerous awards to my name, both academic and art-related, such as being named a National Merit Scholar and an Outstanding Painting Student. I've always loved to exercise the contents of my cranium, so I started college unsure of whether to pursue my creative side through Creative Writing or Art, or to pursue my intellectual and spiritual yearnings through Philosophy or Religion. After taking a number of classes in each subject at the wonderful Warren Wilson College, I realized that the pursuit of a livelihood in art would be the only career path that would allow me to simultaneously explore all four of those interests at once! I realized that art would allow for a creative outlet to all the intellectual and spiritual searches that I would conduct throughout my life. As much as I loved the supportive, community-minded environment of Warren Wilson, its Art Department was still in its infancy at that time, so I left for a school with a more established program. I spent four years at the University of South Florida on a full scholarship. Most of the artwork I created there falls under my "Composite Realism" category and reflects a time in my life when my artistic output correlated with my search for a sense of identity through my cross-cultural connections.

After graduating magna cum laude in the spring of 2004, I have since been travelling the world and creating more artworks, now employing a variety of styles and themes to express the many nuances of existence that my boundless curiosity compels me to explore. With subject matter ranging from politics to the subconscious, and through themes personal and universal, I create works that draw directly from tangible images of the world around me (photorealism) to works that spring from an inner spiritual search (abstracts). Now that I am out of college, the world is my classroom and I seek inspiration from all I find around me, from crusty old toys in thrift stores to complex concepts expounded in crusty old books. With each new piece of art that I create, my skills are continually challenged and expanded and my concepts become richer and more fully defined. Like life, my creative endeavors are an endless learning process that is often surprising and always enriching.

Artist Highlights

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