
As my work has evolved, I have subconsciously and
consciously seized and emphasized the tangible elements of the artistic
process. While studying the
history of art, I became enthralled with the nonfino works by
Michelangelo, in which the great sculptor presciently foreshadowed more
modern conceptions by leaving work unfinished, emphasizing the Neo-Platonic
origins of the piece. The viewer is unquestionably aware that this life-like
figure, for all its realism and dynamism, was borne of a rigid chunk of
stone. Likewise, I was
captivated by the layers of paint that one witnesses while gazing at a late
Monet. Oil paintings that are
thick, almost sculptural, seemed to consistently draw me in.
As a result, my own work strives to not just represent a particular
scene, but to represent an artistic process.
In many of my paintings, paint itself has become the subject.
I believe in art as a means of expressing aesthetic
beauty, and in this pursuit I sometimes find myself lost to the world,
oblivious to everything except that glob of paint hanging from the tip of my
brush in the moment before it makes contact with the canvas.
The process at times consumes me, and this is the process I attempt
to convey, whether it be through the palimpsests of brushstrokes or the mark
of a chisel. Whether I am
hastily laying down strokes to capture a moment of light in front of me
before the sun moves, or painstakingly looking at the precise reflection in
the stillest water, my work, at all times, pursues a depiction of the
sublime world we live in that is filled with grace, sprezzatura, and
life.