Artist Statement
My paintings are a practice of rooting out the voices of guilt and abuse that we use against ourselves. Diving inwards and excavating these voices, I try to pull them out and trap them. I call it "catching demons." These are demon masks representing a shadow psyche.
My childhood consisted of abuse and religion. Pentecostal dogma imposed on me, isolated from the world and other children. A cruel and bitter upbringing normalized physical and emotional abuse. For many years I painted about the church and the spell of its promise to try and understand what happened to me. Recently I've turned this focus inward. How deep are the wounds of this experience? How can I exorcise the trauma? Can I turn victimhood into empowerment?
I paint in a realistic manner, trying to capture complete forms and details as clear as I can. Yet the paintings are surreal with unexpected motifs replacing the expected. Wings become bones, faces become sheets of plastic, proportions are in disharmony. Inspired by painters like Bosch, Bruegel, and Bacon, I disassemble and reassemble elements. The images are confronting and frantic. They look back at you.
My childhood consisted of abuse and religion. Pentecostal dogma imposed on me, isolated from the world and other children. A cruel and bitter upbringing normalized physical and emotional abuse. For many years I painted about the church and the spell of its promise to try and understand what happened to me. Recently I've turned this focus inward. How deep are the wounds of this experience? How can I exorcise the trauma? Can I turn victimhood into empowerment?
I paint in a realistic manner, trying to capture complete forms and details as clear as I can. Yet the paintings are surreal with unexpected motifs replacing the expected. Wings become bones, faces become sheets of plastic, proportions are in disharmony. Inspired by painters like Bosch, Bruegel, and Bacon, I disassemble and reassemble elements. The images are confronting and frantic. They look back at you.