To me, art has a broad definition – something like, ‘that which is created by a mind, which uses aesthetic effects to direct or manipulate attention.’ This could mean anything from a road sign, to a bower bird’s bower, to Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog. But while ‘artist’ might then simply refer to someone who makes art, I think the role of ‘artist’ often has a more specific job description. An artist, in my estimation, is meant to experience the world, filter it, and re-present it for others. The presentation can question or celebrate existing ways of seeing life, but in any case it also invites the audience to apply the same careful perception that art demands to their own lives.

I’m interested in the interconnectedness of all things. The wild, the technological, the human – these are simply aspects of a universe continually creating itself. Mutually arising.
I suspect this is the most basic and precious truth humans can understand, and I think that the world is made better to the extent that people do understand and apply it in their dealings with other people, with themselves, with their own bodies, with the universe.

In my work, the forms of people – faces, bodies – overlap and interact with other natural forms like plants and fossils, and with suggestions of technological, geometric, or architectural ones. Sometimes I use visual layering, collaging and blending imagery together. Other times I treat the human and other subjects as elements interacting in a space beyond the picture plane. Sometimes I apply a texture from one domain to the form of a subject in another. And sometimes all of these approaches work together.

The idea is to create visual metaphors which explore Who We Are, Where We Come From, and Where We’re Going. One word for that kind of thing is… ‘mythology.’ My highest goal is to contribute to more people operating with the kind of personal mythology that Joseph Campbell described when Bill Moyers asked him what kind of new myth was needed, at the end of the last century:

“We need myths that will identify the individual not with his local group but with the planet.”