Reality. The term "reality" denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that exists, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. My paintings present an independent reality, a world that is dependent on our real world yet is separate from it. It is a world that exists on its own terms.
When you're in a place you tend to absorb much more than you can possibly remember. You notice details and seemingly inconsequential things, which are then put together in your mind. To represent the qualities that the mind absorbs requires a combination of recollection and reference. Photography is an important tool. It isn't the photographic 'look' so much as it is the photographic memory that is important for my paintings. The photograph provides not just veracity but memory of a subject. This allows for a fairly detailed approach to my painting, but one that I can subjectively control in terms of how I use the information to achieve different degrees of realism or hyperrealism.
I'm interested in what one could call 'ordinary fare'. I don't look for the exotic. The scenes that I'm interested in are usually immediately familiar as social types and modern spaces. Within these unassuming locations, subjects, and situations, I try to tap into what I perceive as the endless narratives and ironies that happen around us all the time.
The urban surrounding is a peculiar one, simultaneously connecting and disconnecting the people within it. While it can be very seductive in many ways, there is often a barrier that keeps people from sharing an informal existence. Modern urban spaces are a kind of environment, a stage put together to facilitate the interactions between the characters that appear on it. My paintings tend to focus upon moments of perceived reflection or introspection. Reflection may be found when a subtle oddness occurs in a person's immediate surroundings, a moment of instability perhaps, or even déjà vu. What I show are the moments that capture unique and precise points in the frenzy of urban life, when individuals might suddenly seem subconsciously pensive, reactive, even surprised.
Part of what attracts me to a subject is the quality of light the way shadows and certain light effects might articulate parts of an image, giving new meaning to other areas. This has led me to become fascinated by the distortions of the reflective surface, not simply for their aesthetic beauty, but for the possibilities they present in being able to reconfigure reality and bring new aspects of a surrounding to the fore. The space is stable, yet incoherent, shapes move into one another without defined borders or definite locations. The awareness of the depth of space both in front of, and behind you merge. The natural reaction is to try and put space back together into a rational form, like a kind of puzzle. The reflective elements provide another barrier, a wall of sorts, that is representative of the urban disconnect. A window is made of glass, but a window can bend and alter conventional reality in exciting new ways, often providing accidental shifts in perspective. I look to make paintings that subtly combine all of this into a seamless, unassuming whole.