I studied art at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio and the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. I have exhibited my work in New York City and the Washington D.C. area and was a 2011 visiting artist at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia.
As an artist, I am dedicated to reframing and expanding the seemingly limited genre of still-life painting. In my current work, I paint unusual subjects that resonate both personally and culturally in striking, complex, and painstakingly-rendered compositions. I am interested in the traces of meaning that objects hold for their owners and, for that reason, I often select subjects that tell a personal and human story.
My work revolves around small but portentous objects such as toys, souvenirs, and heirlooms. Such artifacts raise immediate personal and cultural associations for many viewers and playing with these traces of meaning are central to my work. The result is a very unique form of realistic still-life painting, imbued with remembrance and contemplation and expressed in slightly electric colors. My unique approach to the subject unmoors it from simple nostalgia or sentimentalizing of the past to create something new and immediate.