ARTIST STATEMENT

My current drawings are visual narratives that capture fragments and recreate moments of childhood memories and anxieties. They reveal intimate and sometimes awkward scenes that focus on growing up with a schizophrenic grandfather and the impact of this relationship.

These life size drawings are fueled by personal fears, confusions, anxieties, frustrations, and the vulnerabilities of childhood. They integrate universal themes of the human condition: a celebration of life at its darkest and brightest points.

Images of tumbling kittens, broken chairs, little girls, and distressed men strive to connect with each other while sharing an inner life at odds with reality. Built into the narrative are familiar characters, such as Pinocchio, that represent the duality of the real and artificial self and the innocence of childhood. These characters explore an internal world unrestricted by logic or structure that conveys an underlying sense of anxiety and uncertainty.

The tactility of charcoal and smoothness of acrylic gesso evokes and blurs forms to create solidity and space. Large white expanses suggest the transitive nature of memory juxtaposed against anxiously marked areas of visual and psychological interest. Aggressive marks, erasures, and veils of acrylic create realistic and abstract moments frozen in time.

I intend for these frozen moments of childhood memories to intimately and physically engage the viewer while sharing an honest reaction and dignified experience that everyone can relate to. These narratives are personal observations of the human condition that present an immediate and intimate, tangible expression of memory.