In the rural area where I live there is a divisive cost that comes from the struggle for wider scope and inclusivity. These are the stories of ordinary people, frayed cuffs and halos of light, non-traditional alignments of the pedestrian and the sublime. These are my neighbors, family, and friends. I work collaboratively with each sitter, mining conversations of dislocation and disturbance, aiming to give voice to personal narratives that resist forces that define identity. I am interested in subtle shifts of consciousness.

These are not paintings of a photograph; instead, numerous photographic references and projections are layered, and the drawing structure builds gradually and perceptually.  In some sections I focus on the material quality of paint while often subtracting excess information. These areas develop in the same way as my conversation with the subjects in them: there is a central thought that guides the idea, the setting, and the pose.  Other sections develop by painting symbolic objects as I remember them. These areas reflect moments when editing-out is not necessary, when the subjects present themselves spontaneously and without artifice, when the idea and the image build unplanned. And in other areas still, I use light to fragment forms and deconstruct spaces, reordering the appearance of the spaces and adding personal meaning.

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