Artist Statement:

Any society that can nurture the arts on a large scale, producing the prosperity that allows for individuals to support a career as a fine artist is inherently a society of relative privilege. This is not to disregard the arts as indulgent or frivolous, but to establish a vantage point from which to view art and the complex interactions between art and society.

Art, in all mediums is a valuable means for the communication of cultural values. It communicates in a way that the media cannot. Successful pieces gain success by the shared impact they have over a group of people; providing an insight that at once seems new, piercing and progressive yet almost obvious. Though one may the lack the ability to articulate this insight in such a way as the artist has, one knows it inherently and immediately. In gaining such an insight, one gains another foot hold in the navigation of the meaning produced in a society.

From this perspective art is situated near to the free press in regards to its role in our democracy, though different through its fictional properties (the timeless Picasso cliché seems apt to describe this- “art is the lie that tells the truth”.). It is an invaluable means of advocacy and criticism with an endless ability to humanize, relate, juxtapose or condemn. Unlike the media, however, art doesn’t (or shouldn’t) fear libel, censorship or appeal to sales.

This is not to say that for art to be relevant it must always be concerned with direct comment on issues deemed ‘political’, nothing could be further from the truth; even when probing the deepest of personal qualities we expose reflection on what it means to be human in this time, which is perhaps the most appropriate description of what the word political should mean.

Given this, it is suffice to say that art does not exist in a vacuum and in recognition of this shared context there is some responsibility that falls on the artist to engage themselves with their surroundings. To hold a critical eye to the events and social forces that shape our society and culture fulfils this responsibility.

The foundation of this approach is a critique of the values of a consumerist society; a society that has turned prosperity (indeed a result of previous wars) into a deeply material value structure. This is a place where novelty is the primary vehicle of happiness and the power of purchase is superseded only by the demagogues of credit (as seen in the developing fallout of the current market crisis). It is a criticism of the absurd logic of 'progress'.

A large portion of my work aims to immediately implicate myself in the workings of each piece. I do not want to pass the buck, point a finger or act as official blame assigner. Far from self deprecating, or acting out of shame, I seek to exhibit this implication because I so strongly feel that I am a part of what I seek to criticize; that exploring such topics is process of self-exploration and self reflection, discovering the ways I and perhaps others have internalized these characteristics, as much as it is a process of external objective analysis.

I work primarily in a figurative language, using the human form and its relation to itself and surroundings as a medium through which to convey these reflections and observations. I have always found it hard to avoid using the figure, to move to what some may consider a more formal platform; the figure, the human form and I hope consequentially the human condition, resonate too strongly. In these simple and perhaps even mundane pictures I hope to hint at something larger than just the body, but absurdly obvious (and obviously absurd) in the microcosm that is the representation of a figure and what they do with their stuff.