Artist Statement

I have finally come to the realization that I am yet another resource-consuming individual in an overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you are old and weak. But for now, I will submit my life to your moral scrutiny, all the while wondering...who made you the master of my fate!

As a whole my artwork is a continuing, connected string of ideas and inspirations. I use social narratives and figurative icons to engage the viewer in a moment of speculation, sometimes, offering morals at the end. My tendency is to use color, line, and work very emotionally. The paintings are always preceded by drawings, they are conceptual, but at the same time physically built.

Artwork made to explore the world in which we live. Artwork about the nature of society, and the experience of people. The work is self-expressive and able to be read in a cultural context. The inspiration for each painting comes from everyday life, politics, and pop-culture. Life manifested in artwork. Some of the issues I confront in my work include affordable housing, the plight of the middle class in San Francisco, and the struggle for artistic acceptance. I choose subjects that somehow interact in my life, with myself as either a participant or an observer. For example, my frustration with the reality of living in a city where a young couple needs $650,000 to buy their first home has fueled work that delves into the issue. I like to create the atmosphere of a partially told story, so that people can arrive at there own conclusions using my clues and their own experience

As a child growing up in Las Vegas I was always mesmerized by American culture, the seduction of its products, Saturday morning cartoons, MTV and the strikingly beautiful neon signage that surrounded me. Thus is the combination of my own American sensibility and my life experience that have led me to my current work. In 2006, believing that neon is a natural part of any urban environment, I began adding words and symbols meant to articulate certain ideas and meanings. For example, in one self-portrait I have added the “American Idol” logo in neon, as a direct relation to my own struggles as an artist and the difficulties artists face in developing opportunities to show their work and surviving. The neon is used to add subtexts and associations and convey rhetorical messages in the artwork. It is also used to convey a sense of “Visual Dominance” in my work.