Artist Statement

To be completely honest with you, I hate artist statements so much. They are unironically my least favorite thing about being an artist. I struggle with practically nothing as much as I struggle to come up with a few sentences that I feel adequately describe my work in a way that’s supposed to pull you in and be catchy and cutesy with the words. I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I can’t do this. I don’t have a problem with talking or writing about my work. But since I’ve always wanted my work to defy easy categorization or narrowness of concept, it has always made the most sense to me that my artist statement could never be just a few sentences. It feels disingenuous to even attempt that. 

Having said all of this, I do believe it is completely fair and reasonable for an artist to be accessible to conversation, critique, and questions about their work. To take that a step further, I believe that the power of my work intensifies immensely once a conversation exists around it. And so I am providing to you, in my actual voice and writing style, what I envision for my artist statement. 

One of the primary goals of my artistic practice is to have my work be involved in many different conceptual conversations at the same time. I want my work to be charged with intense meaning, yet also have an atmosphere of mystery. I want attention to be drawn to my choices of materials and media. I’ll admit openly that I can be intentionally enigmatic, but that’s because of my personal fascination with enigmatic subject matter. 

I make large abstract paintings and drawings, mixed media collages, surrealist pieces, and sometimes representational work. I use eclectic materials, from found objects to construction materials to bedsheets. My work can be very personal in what is depicted, yet universal in theme, and vice-versa. Variety may be the one unifying trait of my entire body of work. Not concerning myself with trying to narrow my practice towards a specific subject matter or approach feels like I’m representing the truest version of myself; I get bored far too easily to make so much work on a specific topic. 

I consider myself a maker of images, and to a slightly lesser extent, objects. I am part of a ‘grand tradition’ of image-makers going back through every stage of humanity’s development. To put it with less grandiosity, making art is meaningful to me because I feel like a part of something much larger than myself, and I try to be aware of that presence while I’m working. However, I also like to confound the viewer’s expectations and flaunt tradition. Sometimes my work appears dense and academic, while other times it is whimsical and humorous, and I do make a conscious effort to not take myself too seriously, at least on aesthetic and conceptual levels. 

There is a strong DIY component to my work due to the massive influence of punk rock and indie rock (especially lo-fi and shoegaze) on my aesthetic sensibilities. I am an avid and obsessive listener of many different kinds of music. My two major musical obsessions of the past several years have been Metal’s many subgenres and Brazilian Music (e.g. Samba, Bassa Nova, Forro). I spend many hours arranging complex playlists based off of obscure subgenres, and my desire to attain sonic knowledge can be quite voracious. I don’t claim to be a full-on synesthete, but I cannot ignore music’s immense role in my creative process, from subject matter to composition. 

As an artist, I see myself as a cultural food processor of sorts. I consume and internalize all media within the context of my artistic practice. Individual influences or pieces of inspiration might transform into unrecognizable new things before they are manifested in an artwork. I like for my work to make cultural allusions that can either be obvious or completely hidden. I am a maximalist in that I strive for my work to be about as many different things as it can be. This does not mean I try to stuff “messages” into my work. In fact, I usually end up doing the opposite. 

I believe that Art is too big to have any one purpose. And based on what I believe about life and consciousness at large, even my knowledge of my own self has limits. So in a sense, all that I’ve written here is merely theory, conclusions drawn from self-observation, and attempts to rationalize behaviors that may have no clear explanation. I believe Art is one of the purest and most human activities, and that this purity is what gives Art its power. I want my work to embody this pure humanity and if possible, expand human consciousness in some modest way.