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About the Artist

"I don't think people are born artists; I think it comes from a mixture of your surroundings, the people you meet, and luck."—Francis Bacon

I have no formal training in art. I started painting in 2004 and spent the first few years afraid to experiment with color. The result was black-and-white pieces that, while bold in their starkness, were really the result of a beginner's fear of the canvas. In the past year-and-a-half, I have been experimenting with colors and textures and am more than pleased with the result.

Case in point:

"New England has a harsh climate, a barren soil, a rough and stormy coast, and yet we love it, even with a love passing that of dwellers in more favored regions."—Henry Cabot Lodge

Born under the pewter gray of the New England sky, I am heavily influenced by the starkness— both visual and cultural—of the region. My Protestant upbringing seems to pop up in my work when I least expect it, bringing with it the Christian cross and melodramatic imagery.

In addition to New England, I count among my other influences Japanese minimalist painters, Odilon Redon, Franz Kline, Renaissance paintings of Jesus Christ, and Francis Bacon.

As I've mentioned, my first pieces were my starkest, and they formed the "Spiritual" series. The paintings in this series were mainly composed of alternating black and red lines:

"Like the instincts, the collective thought patterns of the human mind and innate are inherited."—Carl Jung, from Man and His Symbols

In many of my paintings, I take recognizable symbols (the cross, the ribbon) and twist them slightly. This way the viewer is confronted by an image he/she subconsciously recognizes but is forced to view and therefore interpret it in a different way.

In the "51 Most Beautiful People" series, which I started in 2006 and which is far from finished, I use silkscreens, photos, and paint to highlight someone I find beautiful and interesting. So far I have used the musician PJ Harvey and my friend John as subjects. I have 49 portraits to go in this series.

"The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people."—Dian Fossey

Gorillas are featured in two of my works, "Gorillas in the Fucking Mist" and "Freedom Isn't Free." The idea of the gorilla as used in an artistic context entered my consciousness when I began to study the works of Francis Bacon, whose art and life I greatly admire. Then the animals themselves began to pop into my work when I least expected it.