I believe that a portrait is just a moment in time frozen with the intent of capturing history, and because of that, I don’t consider myself to be a portrait artist. I believe that my art focuses more on faces, because faces come with stories that are deeper than moments, and my art is driven by those stories, regardless of whether or not it resembles portraiture.

I suspect that my experience as an adolescent struggling to socialize with other people, has been a major influence on my artwork. I’m in my 40s now, so I no longer struggle in that way, but back then, I always felt alien to those around me. As a result of that otherness, I spent a lot of time observing and watching people rather than interacting with them. I couldn’t help but imagine the infinite universe branching out from each person’s face like words in an epic novel. And it’s often said in criticism, but I do believe that as human beings, or even simply as living creatures, that we are each at the center of our own universe.

To me, we’re a phenomenon, an accident in the grand scheme. We shouldn’t be possible, yet we are. I mean, think about it. We’re conscious. We’re sentient. We communicate. We have language and written word. We think. We live. We experience. We die. We remember our histories and have ideas about our futures. We’ve developed cultures and communities that we identify with, and we feel a whole array of emotions. All of that stuff is important and interesting, to me. It’s ripe fruit for the picking, and that’s why I do what I do as an artist.

In 2005 I completed a 10-canvas self-portrait installation entitled “Who Am I?” and a single canvas baby self-portrait with my personal history written across the face. Those two concepts, in addition to the 3-dimensional face casts that I began making that same year, all act as the impetus for my current work.

In general, I’m a painter and a sculptor. My current body of work varies in appearance but it all involves one or more faces and a story that’s either literal or implied. In some of my artwork, words are etched into, painted atop of, or enclosed within the surface of the artwork itself. For others, the concept is formed as a result of contextual relationships or pairing like multiple faces shown side-by-side. It's this metaphoric combination of identity elements like words and openable vessels that drives my interest even further. To me, they’re symbolic metaphors for the relationship between a person's physical identity and their non-physical self.

And because my paintings are often so deliberate in their metaphoric concept, I felt it was necessary to let some of my other work speak for itself. Hence the reason for me making face-casts out of various materials, but primarily ceramic. They’re pure, unaltered depictions of real people. I sculpt the hair onto them and refine some of the surface, but beyond that, little is changed, which is intentional, because so much of what I do as a painter is digging into the qualia of individuals, but sometimes that story doesn’t need to be so flushed out in order for it to speak volumes. Sometimes, surface level is more than enough.

In the early 90s, before I was a teenager, I recall watching Stonehorse Goeman sculpt soapstone busts of Native Americans on my front porch. It wasn’t until much later that I realized how inspirational that moment was for me. I remember picking up the shards of stone left behind after he’d finished sculpting and equating those pieces to a metaphorical shed skin. I remember thinking that there was a story in that skin, and I’m grateful every day for my parent’s decision to invite Stonehorse and his family to stay with us, because it’s very possible that that might be where my story began.

Some artists that have inspired my work over the years include Chuck Close, Marc Quinn, Tony Oursler, Janine Antoni, and Ron Mueck, for their use of the face as a driver of concept. I’m also inspired by the work or Titus Kaphar for his breathtaking depiction of the unseen and Jenny Saville for her use of etched text on a painted surface. I love the work of Andy Warhol, Wengenchi Mutu, and Ellen Gallagher, in particular, for their collections of multiple faces that explore a singular identity-based concept. And I wouldn’t be anything without the artistic influence of my college mentors, Robert Schefman and Gilda Snowden, who both helped to shape me into the deep thinking, curious, and considerate artist, that I believe I am today.