Artist Statement (For the time being)

          Everything feels fragmented.  Life used to make way more sense, or at least, it felt like it did. My work used to flow freely and without care. Art used to be fun. I didn’t care about composition or meaning or color theory. It just spilled out of me in an endless creative tidal flow. I miss that. I miss feeling inspired to just make things. I miss making art just because it was fun. I miss making art because it felt like the only thing I ever wanted to do.

          The work I’m making now is a response to that idea. I want it to be fun again. I want to make work that I enjoy looking at. I was tired of hating every single painting I made, so I started rejecting some of the ideas and principles that I’ve picked up over the years in exchange for work that just makes me happy when I see it. This idea translates to my work as a shift in control, from intentional to unintentional, in a way of disruption and perpetual re-imagination of composition as the piece moves forward. This allows for the work to unfold in ways that make it exciting for me. I need to be surprised. If I know exactly what the painting is going to look like in the end, then it stops being interesting. I lose the drive to finish it.

             My work is rarely informed by ideologies or politics or movements within the art world. I’m just making work that I want to see. I’m letting inspiration happen when it happens. I’m letting imagery from film and television shows start to creep into the work because I enjoy these things and believe that some of it has merit. I’m not letting color theory interrupt what I make. I’m allowing myself some breathing room.  Everything feels fragmented, so that’s how the work is turning out. I’m not the first person to do this and as this aesthetic gains traction, I will surely not be the last. This is just how I feel right now. Here. On this planet. In this universe. Now