what?

 

I've been making work in the last few years focusing primarily on the things I carry with me through my life: the everyday things, the burdens of sadness and anxiety and anger. The difficult to navigate and painful things that I have trouble talking about like an adult. The formless things, the uncertainty. I sometimes feel like I almost understand, but I can’t ever sort it out. I can’t ever find a satisfying explanation.

And so I paint.

A long time ago someone very important to me told me “painting isn’t fun, painting is in the blood.” At the time I thought that I understood what he meant, or at least I pretended to. I didn’t really, but I do now. I’m not painting because I think the paintings are solutions. The paintings are just my problems spooled out using animals and flowers and smoke and fire and tangled, interconnected strings.

I like to use allegories and metaphors so a viewer can take what they need from my troubles without having to have precisely the same problems. I'm being vague and esoteric intentionally, so they can hang their worries from the same tree.

When it goes right I get a taste of something so amazing it’s difficult to put into words. It’s like a slow, warm rising tide when I can push light around with color, when I can make a feather read like a feather, when smoke looks like it’s billowing out of a fire, when I can make an eye flash like an eye, when I can feel the air in the space that I just made. It’s like magic. 

It’s so strong I can stop worrying about everything for just a little while, about dying, about my future, about being alone forever. There’s no creeping dread, no hopelessness, no anxiety. But then it goes away and I have to try to get there again, and again, and again.

 

selected shows

 

2019 group - ‘animalia’ abend gallery, denver, co

2019 group - ‘poison garden’ antler gallery, portland, or

2019 group - ‘elements’ haven gallery, northport, ny

2019 group - ‘folklore’ haven gallery, northport, ny

2018 group - ‘public display no. 2’ agnes b., ny, ny

2018 group - 'la reve' haven gallery, northport, ny

2018 group - 'nine lives' parlor gallery, asbury park, nj

2018 group - 'vanitas' haven gallery, northport, ny

 

2014 group - 'lost carcosa' masters projects, brooklyn, ny

2014 group - 'depth of substance' succulent studios, brooklyn, ny

2014 group - 'nyc to tehran' seyhoun gallery, tehran, iran

 

2013 group - 'centre-fuge public art campaign, cycle 9' ny, ny

2013 group - 'schoolhouse art show' the schoolhouse, brooklyn, ny

2013 group - 'essam defense fund' animalMotherNY, ny, ny

 

2012 solo - 'dreaming without sleeping' the active space, brooklyn, ny

2012 group -  'just my type' lowbrow artique, brooklyn, ny

2012 group - 'public display' agnes b, ny, ny

selected press