ART
How do you come up with the characters in your paintings? I refer to some of my characters as natives from my imagination, and others are immigrants. Immigrant characters come from childhood stories or fairy tales — like my character of Little Red who came from Little Red Riding Hood. A native is a character derived from my imagination, created from myriad things that are familiar to me. When characters meet and interact, the line between a native and an immigrant character gets blurry over time. What are the themes you explore in your paintings? My work is focused upon the theme of balance between binary poles. It examines the tension between opposites, in both the substantive thematic territory of my work and its formal aspects. I capture moments of transition in order to freeze them in time so they can be analyzed by myself and ultimately the viewer. My work is neither entirely classical nor entirely contemporary, neither entirely realistic nor entirely fantastical, neither entirely familiar nor entirely alien. What kind of emotional journey do you believe viewers experience when they look at your paintings? By using a safe and familiar composition, my goal is to lull the viewer into a false sense of comfort and familiarity, where they are drawn to images which, upon further viewing, become curious, uncomfortable, and perhaps even dangerous. I offer to the viewer my imagination, a bastion of myths, and metaphors of my idiosyncrasies, fears, hopes, and desires. Viewers get to take a journey and find their own interpretation. You have called your paintings intensely autobiographical. Could you elaborate on this? The paintings deal quite explicitly with secrets from my own childhood in small-town, lower-middle-class Kentucky, as well as my life’s journey. I chose to paint in a style that quotes Flemish painting and nineteenth-century society portraiture so that no one depicted in my paintings would ever suspect these paintings were about them. This tension between the distant and the deeply personal, between discretion and confession, is another example of the theme of balance in my work. Is there a character in literature you most identify with? I find myself similar to the character Prospero in Shakespeare’s last play, The Tempest. Like Prospero, who had an island, I colonize my paintings with an ornate cast of characters. I use this cast like a theater of desire. They literally inhabit my imagination. My paintings are like a silent opera where the characters have something coming out of their mouths, but you can’t hear it. I have always liked the closing line of The Tempest: Prospero turns to the audience after weaving a complex and somewhat confusing scenario, not unlike a surreal painting, and requests, “Let your indulgences set me free.” SocialLifeMagazine.com
Little Red: Sizing Up the Enemy, 2015, 40 in. x 30 in. oil on canvas
Could you give us a glimpse into your creative process? I spend most of my time painting, often working on three paintings at a time. The easels face each other so I see a connection between paintings, as if each is having a conversation with the next, solving compositional concerns. How do your emotions come to life through your paintings? When a valuable experience or emotion, such as desire comes to mind, I like to stretch it and amplify the moment by fitting it to a visual narrative — an imaginary scenario that accentuates the emotion I wish to savor. The imagery allows me to not only revisit the heightened emotion but to anticipate a hopeful future, while always being mindful that the outcome is a mystery. What is one way you have evolved as an artist since you began your classical training in college and grad school? In college and grad school, I was an installation artist. Thinking back, I was creating the stage sets allowing the work to inform my future paintings. In 1999, I transitioned fully into oil painting and I appreciate and enjoy the ability of this form of art.