My work holds a conversation with the ongoing theme of place, which often suggests ideas about human emotion and the human environment; at its core, it is about the identity that can be fashioned from a certain place. A recurring self-portraiture element is evident in my pieces, whether in the form of a representation of me, or a representation of “self” through a certain object. I attempt to illuminate what is hidden beneath the surface. The process is reactionary and often the original idea evolves into a dissimilar end result. The process is a development, made up of layering and mark-making that is added, subtracted, and built upon by mood, environment, and thought process. My work ranges from mixed media collage to charcoal, graphite, and inks on paper, wood, and sheet metal that share a similar palette of sepia, black, grays and white while depicting machinery and portraits that convey an industrial and decaying feeling. My exploration of the physical and psychological interior of the human figure is constant; after all, the complexity of human nature is never ending and is continuously open for exploration--indubitably intriguing.

Recently, I’ve become interested in colossal figures, where parts of the figure merges with the environment or landscape itself--the humans portrayed become machines or cyborgian mixtures. These ideas are partially influenced by Goya, film themes about identity and man’s increasingly complex relationship with machines, the steel mills of Pennsylvania, and literature about psychology and the thought process. Identity and thought form a multifaceted relationship--we are often at war with ourselves, and I see one’s thought process and biological function as a machine-like structure that supports our outward identity.