Artist Statement
Focusing on the human as subject, my work has broadly developed from interests in science fiction and horror films, anatomy, artwork from the Baroque era, and a fascination with the uncanny valley. My recent paintings blur the familiarity and comfort of the body with the distant strangeness of its mechanical nature and mortality. I typically utilize uncomfortable close-ups, heavy distortions, and juxtapositions of internal and external, natural and synthetic, life-taking and life-sustaining situations, while using drapery as a principal point of connection. Machinery relating to and mimicking human organs, plastic and cotton cloth that become like flesh, and figures perhaps not fully human, all simultaneously convey a state of emergency and an enveloping swaddle. What is behind the visible surface is the work’s core. Whether the subjects I depict are seen as being saved from - or in the aftermath of - a horrific tragedy, the lush color, delicate rendering, and striking details tempt and challenge the onlooker to look deeper.
