Statement on Painting and Drawing

Painting and drawing serve as tactile gateways to the senses, with their physicality acting as a filter for the mind. The varying viscosities of paint, ranging from thick impastos to delicate washes, create an immediate tension between the material and its meaning. Dense, textured applications leave a direct impression, a confrontation with reality, while thinner layers provide translucency or a sfumato (smoky) effect, concealing and revealing narrative elements. With its additive and subtractive mark-making, the thought process of drawing mimics decision-making and connects the entire painting system.

Tactile interactions allow my work to embody a spectrum of intensities, blending, and layering concepts that might initially seem incompatible. Today, amid the overwhelming flood of digital imagery and information, painting provides a moment of pause, a time to question reality and challenge conventional understandings of time, space, and societal roles. With this perspective, I utilize the complexity of storytelling, visual fragmentation, and layers of meaning to probe individual and collective perception with what is shown, what is hidden, and what lies just beneath the surface.

Paint’s fluidity allows constant transformation, deconstructing narratives to reveal complex patterns within the disjointed influences of contemporary life. In our hybrid existences, there is a strong push and pull between physical and virtual, straining the collective psyche as our digital identities collide with our daily realities. For me, paint is a dynamic experiential interface between perception, materiality, and narrative capable of confronting the Internet Age's detachment, violence, confusion, and suppression of dissent. As a contemporary language, my paintings echo the human experience, constantly shifting, assessing, and reassessing the social fabric.