I am a self-taught artist and have been painting since 2003. I mainly work in acrylic and recently have started painting in oil.
The process of my work transpires in one of two ways. The first approach is very involved; I begin with a simple idea that I jot down as my thesis. I then do a study on this thesis and begin to add layers to my core idea, building on the idea intuitively and drawing from the emotions, thoughts, circumstances and events going on in my life. The work tells me where to go. I allow the idea to evolve naturally. I use this approach both for a single painting and for an entire series. This effort of evolving ideas from a simple starting point sometimes requires months of planning. The second process I use is spontaneous and explosive. This is the method I use when painting live or when I am painting from raw emotion in my studio. It can start with a controlled wide brush stroke, a violent swinging of paint or a large simple blocked in area of the canvas without any idea of what I want to do but knowing what I want to feel and finding compositional balance and understanding in myself.
I have a curiosity about how color and shapes effect my emotions, moods and thought patterns. This curiosity pushes me to explore who I am and where my impulses, fears and joy come from. My inspiration comes from my own struggles with identity, ego, societal dynamics, learned behaviors and relationships. I create full installations that present the more detailed paintings I work on in the studio.