Artist Statement:

I used to make very clean, precise paintings. So clean that at my first shows, people told me I was a great graphic designer.

One day, frustrated with another neat painting, I ran my hand through the wet canvas. It became the most interesting mark I had ever made. That moment changed my practice because it taught me that paint isn't simply a medium; it is the medium. It is meant to be moved, scraped, pushed, pulled, built up, and torn apart.

Since then, I have used oil paint as a physical material, shelving my brushes and working solely with my hands. I want my paint to have weight, texture, and physical presence. I see it no differently from the clay I used to sculpt with. I want the paint to push beyond the boundaries of the surface until it behaves more like relief than painting.

Sometimes I work from pure instinct, moving the paint until something emerges. Other times, I build objects like lamps, record players, cars, and couches out of cardboard, then paint from them because I want what I paint to already exist in my world. Although these sculptures are physical objects, the cardboard creates a flatness that makes them almost more two-dimensional than my paintings.

I do this because I want my paintings to feel like sculptures and my sculptures to feel like paintings. I want the world my work creates to be tangible, to be lived in, to be experienced rather than merely observed. I want it to be something you can grab onto.