My practice is about exploring my past and present to develop a visual language for flesh. Bodies, and the expression of my own body and sexuality, are central to my work and how I connect to my content. I began with sumo wrestlers, which I reinterpreted as the sensual push/pull of lovers and the ambiguity of passion vs. aggression. Now my subjects are women and men, usually solitary, occasionally as lovers, often asleep. I am inspired by memories, and also contemporary and vintage photos to which I connect viscerally.
Matisse asked..."What is my relationship with the model?"
I love the demanding immediacy of life drawing, a part of my artistic practice that I share with the model. It is a conversation with someone who is speaking with their body, and I use my emotions and intellect to express my side of the conversation through mark-making.
I'm also obsessed with vintage photography and wish I could time travel. Drawing from carefully chosen black & white or sepia photos provides the opportunity to enter the past and look around, deliciously rendering and transforming that world as I draw.