My Bio & Artist Statement

I paint the rough edges of life, the lives of people in crisis, people experiencing chaos, people who in general don’t know how to keep going. My work reflects the wear and tear that these interactions can take on persons from carrying other people’s baggage. I'm not only a painter; I'm sharing their suffering and sorrow as well as the joy and triumph of growth.

I am a self-taught artist who has been painting for over twenty years. I paint for no other reason than I have to. I have this ingrained need to create, to imagine, to dream, and to problem solve my way through this world we were all brought into. My work is unrefined and honest.

I started painting in my first of three rounds of college (I've changed careers). I wanted to take an easy class that I hoped would pad my GPA, and be mindless, so I thought painting would do that. I found it to be quite the opposite. In fact, I hated it. I understood that learning the basic skills was a necessity, but I received no enjoyment from any of it. One day the professor gave an out of class assignment and dreading it, I took home my materials. When I got to my apartment and sat down to start it, the world opened up for me, and that day I started looking at everything differently. Away from the world of academia and the perceived judgment of my peers, all the possibilities started to seem endless. Ever since that day I have painted. I do it almost every day, and I am driven to refine my style and improve upon my work. I took a break from showing when I was changing fields, and my spouse and I had our amazing child.

I am a father, a husband, an active member of my community, and a nurse. I have dedicated my professional l life to working with at risk youth and have been doing it for about 16 years. I currently work as an adult psychiatric nurse on a crisis unit in a mental health hospital. I feel blessed to, on a daily basis; have a positive impact on other people's lives.

My day job has always involved working with those in need. Before I became a nurse, I was a social worker, so I have always been in the service field, trying to improve the quality of life of other human beings. Early on in my life, I realized that I had a lot of compassion for others and have always been that asshole that wants to make the world a better place. These roles in society are underappreciated; they pay poorly and have very high burnout rates. The work can be violent, bloody, and gritty. I have been in a riot, had my life threatened with weapons, been bitten and assaulted, and every day I get back up and put myself in these places because there is a need. I'm not bitter. Like I said earlier, I feel blessed because I still feel like I get to do some good and touch people's lives.

Dealing with human beings whose lives are crumbling and who have experienced such tragedies that it haunts them has become a theme in my work. I wouldn't wish what I have seen these folks experience on my worst enemy. I think that it's only natural that it shows up in my work. I'm narrating this world. I am telling other people's stories, and my interaction with their lives. My work doesn't only focus on the pain of life, but the joy. There are days where the joy and victory is so damn overwhelming it feels like I'm going to implode.

Whenever I start talking with a person and they began to share the jagged edges of themselves with me, I start to see images in my head. The stories are where I start each piece, then (and it always sounds like I'm experiencing auditory hallucinations, I'm not I assure you) the piece tells me what it needs, for me there is a definite conversation with each painting I love to use a lot of color, work with salvaged material, and just overall work on stuff most artists don't normally paint on. I have worked through series where I wove my own canvasses together, sewed in wire to accentuate the piece, worked on window screens and odd-shaped canvas and whatever I could find that's interesting.

Painting is the only truly free pursuit in my life. I am not sure where I fit in art, or even if I fit within its borders. I care about the craft of painting, I work at it every day and strive to keep improving and becoming better at telling the stories. Realistically I don't think I'm changing the face of art with my work, but I feel like I'm sharing something important, a first-hand experience of the struggle.