I am an artist and an Art teacher.  My artwork is a reflection of lots of emotions from various situations whether political, personal or shared.

My growth as an artist and educator, marked with significant physical challenges, have formed my understanding that possibility and creation are independent from any specific material, method or machine.  After extensive study and experience as a painter, I suffered a fall that left me with two broken arms locked in place for 10 months.  Without the use of my arms, I had to find a way to continue creating art.  Born out of this corporal restraint was an awakening of possibility.  By not being physically able to function as a painter, I looked outside my experience to find new methods of expression. My challenge was transformation, reinvention, even mutation, anything but suffering the admittance of limitation.  Soon photography met painting, drawing met sculpture, and the potential of exponential growth had revealed itself.  The scope of my work and my understanding of material plurality and manipulation began to flower.  Through adversity, I was able to expand my understanding of the possible, which has been essential in my teaching as well as my professional practice.

Exposing heat sensitive photographic paper to mediated light and various heated tools created the body of work represented in this portfolio, titled “Training for Zero Gravity.”  The exposure time can extend from one hour to multiple days.  During the exposure process I am able to manipulate and direct the composition through burning, agitation, cutting, excessive friction, and neglect. With the direct application of fire, brightly colored lines raise off the surface like CMYK scars representing a physical history of adversity and endurance.  Spatial relations between figure and ground or concrete and ephemeral information are established with the inclusion of pattern and forms that suggest an optically simultaneous experience of macro and micro.  Ultimately the paper transmogrifies from a medium ready to depict reality and objectivity to a surface that presents a visual history of energy, imagination, and experimentation.  The finished work appears as a brightly colored, disorderly celebration of the trauma that the media has endured.

My art work functions in an obscure space between painting and photography, making a formal identification of its media challenging.  Each finished piece is singular in its physical form but suggestive of the multiple through its material presence.  I use nostalgic images from my past, found in family photo albums or commercially printed pop-culture residue, as an agreed point of departure for my audience and myself.  Common themes of child as hero, body dimorphic disorder, material impermanence, and psychological transcendence are present in all forms of my work.  My studio functions as a laboratory where material is the variable, method is the catalyst and I am the constant.

These are three paintings from my current series, “Joe Yabuki Project.”  Joe Yabuki is the main character in one of the most legendary Japanese comic,”Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe).”  This late 60s Boxing manga might give me great lessons.  Anyway I always try to represent joy, romanticism and innocence within my artwork.  Enjoy.

I was intrigued with the concept of ‘doppelganger’, the ghostly counterpart of a living person. These images developed into a series, and I later named them as if they were autonomous beings.

mixed media on coated paper

People often tell me that I have my own style. I strive to portray my vision through my work, in a way that makes the public curious and concerned, not confused and turned off. I attempt to create pieces that are eye-catching, yet content-driven. I prefer to work with India ink, watercolor, beeswax, paints and glass; however, I am also comfortable creating pieces using video art, printmaking, charcoal, markers, conte crayons, colored pencils, and various other media. I use my fingers as well as a brush, or a palette knife. I almost never work with one single media unless I am painting. My ink pieces involve beeswax as a deterrent and often include watercolor. My charcoals are created with ink or marker worked into the piece. I utilize various media to form each cohesive piece.  To me, art is a means of portraying a feeling or concern. Through their work, artists have had an impact on society for centuries, and I hope to join in that endeavor.

It is through the murky waters that she heaves a sigh and observes the universe.  The sky is blackened as the sun slumbers and the moon’s light dances upon the shores.  Temptation is a fierce sensation and the knowledge of where temptation can take her is what will always hold her back from doing what her desires whisper so sweetly.

The water, like nature’s opening embrace, engulfs her as she dives into the depths.  Honey-sweet is the taste once all the negative energy has been washed away. A spiritual re-birthing, a new life.

I am an Artist based in the UK. previously a Cartoonist for Punch private Eye etc, am now working solely on my own work for Exhibition, Print and commission. My work is intended to show an emotional and in some degree, synesthetic response to my subject. It represents how an idea appears visually to myself.