More than to a single narrative or formalistic element, I depend on emotion to convey the substantive content of my painting. Every moment we live is layered with material, both transient and eternal, that manipulates our emotional state. Florescent lighting, walls the color of twilight, inanimate objects suddenly animated by our own anxiety. All of these elements are diffused through the lens of our own sentiment, providing each person a unique vision of the world. To be able to share that perspective in it’s original visual form as opposed to translating it to music or words is to come closest to its essence. By painting through sentiment, I strive to better understand emotion through interpreting what I’ve created and expressed.

As a child, toys were my most intimate companions. To them, I ascribed entire personalities which I then nurtured and loved. In turn, they watched over me, kept me company, kept me safe. They were also the vessels on which I projected my deepest emotions. When I was sad, I comforted them. When I was angry, they were the cause and I punished them. They were dragged, thrown, hugged, cried on, abused. At the end of childhood, they showed their use — eyeless, hairless, unstuffed. My animals became my personal “Portrait of Dorian Gray”. As I moved into adulthood, my body remained apparently unscathed while they wore all of my scars.

The subjects of my work continue to show my deepest emotions: fear, loneliness, grief, anger. All I refuse to display on my surface, I show on theirs. This is my companion’s final service to the adult child – a selfless sacrifice of their vanity to keep intact my own.

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