My current work uses urban environments as the subject matter; places that have been part of my childhood and others that I have lived in throughout my adult life. Cities never rest and are constantly regenerating. The places I look to use in my work are always filled with commotion, instruction, chaos and saturated patterns. Each work starts off as a series of photographs that I take while exploring a particular place. I do not paint from life but rely on the camera’s way of seeing. What I am looking for when taking pictures is not the ‘perfect’ image of that place but a series of distorted, blurry photographs. Often times my references are out of focus, they have glare and a peculiar sense of perspective. I look for these unconventional images as inspiration because they are not static. My final goal with each painting is not to represent the place it is based upon, but the experience of moving through it. I try to preserve the aesthetic of the blurry photograph in the final work by using abstract marks and stretched out lines. In the end, I view my paintings as time based images, although they are made using still based media.
