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Tell us about yourself & how you became an artist
When I was around five, my mom was showing me how to blend pastels. I remember being in awe. My family has been so very supportive of my art practice. I think everyone has the capactiy to be an artist if they choose, art making is about sustained curiosity. It's about making and doing. I became a studio artist once I decided it was critical to build a practice even if no one's watching or buying the work.
What is your art addressing? What kind of message do you want to convey through your art?
My narrative landscapes explore the tension between real and surreal, often weaving in personal and collective anxieties around climate change, land use, and public versus private space. Many paintings explore how nostalgic spaces exist in the crossroad between memories, real and imagined, and our present reality. By investigating various viewpoints--historical, personal, and imagined--we create empathy within our ever-changing world. Our current moment in time has unleashed a cacophony of emotions: unique, collective, terrible, sad, at times joyful and new. The fabric of our social lives is being re-worked, our living spaces are re-imagined, our public spaces rediscovered.
What kind of emotions do you want to stir in your audience?
Public spaces are visceral, storied environments—my practice explores the psychological connection of people and place through the language of landscape painting. The work can act as an oculus for examining experiences, imagined moments, and accessing our collective memory. Each painting is like a short story––a narrative––and I hope that it can continue the conversation long after it leaves my studio. I want the painting to shift over time, be adaptable and yet specific––you know, like re-reading a favorite book. It's never quite the same as that first read; each subsequent experience is overlaid on the time before.
What is your creative process?
I think it's best described as coordinated chaos.
3 words to describe yourself as an artist
Intuitive, Curious, Sensitive
3 words to describe your art
Colorful, multidimensional, perceptive
Your go-to music for when you're working?
I let my phone shuffle between a mix of electronica, oldies, 80s and 90s.
Favorite movie or show?
My favorite TV series is Law and Order and my favorite movie is Star Wars.
Favorite color?
Orange
VIEW WORKS FROM THE ARTIST
Do you have a routine or ritual for when you're working?
Often, I start by making a cup of coffee and read for a little, sometimes working on a sketch. If I'm feeling particularly reticent about a painting, I might set-up a problem or task for myself––like a still-life painting or drawing a dream. If the piece I'm currently involved with is calling to me, I'll start right away.
Where / When / How do you get inspired?
The way we as a community move through and experience environments is thought provoking for my practice. Who walked this path before? Who's lived in that house? Does anyone else love this particular tree in Prospect Park? These questions have come up again and again while investigating familiar landscapes. Walking through the park, researching historical accounts, or even happenstance conversations with random people can influence my painting process. I read a lot and I'm often inspired by authors who deal in magical realism. Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges and Haruki Murakami have influenced the way I think about space and time, our reality and the one just beyond our grasp. Carl Jung's theories on Synchronicity and the nature of phenomena are intriguing as they offer this scientific approach to breaking the fourth wall––that loss of stability in our known environment.
“The way we as a community move through and experience environments is thought provoking for my practice.”
What makes you happy?
Books, parks, my partner, alone time, Karaoke, dancing, living, walking, spending time with friends, my dog, my family, cooking.
What impact does living in New York have on you?
My first experience living in a city was during art school in Philly, the artist community there had a profound impact on my work. It ignited a love of urban landscape and the unique ways in which wandering and drifting through an urban environment can reveal these little stories everywhere. I moved to Brooklyn about 7 years ago. It's interesting the way the two cities contrast each other speaking their own love language they have distinct personalities. Like a Walk in the Park is a series I started in 2016 to explore how the public navigates city parks.
How has your art changed throughout your career?
It's become more expansive, I'm not as concerned about how the work is perceived or pigeonholed into a particular theme. It's possible for my studio practice to be investigated multiple tracks within the work. That wasn't always the case, I definitely feel more open and free in my work at this time.