I paint real conversations with real people in real time in reimagined spaces made from hastily made on-sight drawings and photographic references. Each painting is presented with the sitter’s words and sentiments in text as the boundaries of art and real-life dissolve.

I use oil paint that is stiffened in the freezer and mix the drying thin skins back into the paint for added texture. The substrate, cradled hardwood, enhances the effect of the thickly textural surface that is sensitive to the ways the materials touch, influence, and transform. My most recent images have slowly transitioned from invented light-filled constructions to magical settings, yet I am ever interested in the spatial poetry of the generations of painters before me.

In each new work I ask: “How can I tell a story that is impossible to tell?” I continually return to forms of figuration and the painted story to gain a deeper understanding of my experiences with others. The people I paint are my neighbors, friends and family living in a remote, cold, rural Adirondack community. And despite often being caricatured or ignored in larger cultural conversations, I aim to invite viewers into our moments of quiet tension and connection.

I am inspired by the small hopes and individual actions of so many in my rural Adirondack community in response to injustice and to local and global issues. I think of each painting as a counterforce to the overwhelming sense of invisibility many communities feel when their narratives are told for or taken from them.