Artist Bio

I am inspired by the resilience of the human spirit,
how you can lose everything and still go on.

I am inspired by the blind optimism of the human spirit
Those times at nadir when you can still see a cloud that speaks to you

I am inspired by the authoritative human spirit
Which can be so cruel while feeling justified and righteous

Artist Statement

This body of work, titled home sick, draws from the human condition as it relates to injustice and inequity. The homeless population in the Bay Area grew by almost 40 percent in the last two years, topping 13,000 people, most of whom are living in temporary shelters. As this population grows, our society faces a domestic humanitarian crisis.  The series American Homes addresses this housing crisis by breaking down the wealth / poverty disparity. This is achieved by engraving a schematic of a dollhouse or idealized home into the surface of the photograph. The photograph depicts a reality of the way we exist, strive to exist and box others into an existence. Continuing on this path, barrier and barricade are influenced by the street to prison circular path forced on much of our youth. The series temporary shelter works as psychological studies that deal with the object, as much as it does the photographic content. The view is from inside a temporary shelter looking out to the landscape. These strive to show certain paradoxes. The flatness of the foreground speaks about the surface quality and a painterly sensibility, while the deeper perspective of the landscape can be looked on as hopeful and serene, as well as, time running its course. Objects, people and places can all provide temporary shelter. It all depends on one’s perspective.

This work is created using a historic photographic process called gum bichromate. I have altered this process by using a traditionally gessoed panel as the substrate to paint on the photographic emulsion.  This gives me more freedom to add meaning by marring into the surface. The emulsion utilizes watercolor and powdered pigment along with the light sensitive potassium dichromate and gum arabic. Full size negatives are sandwiched between the emulsion, coated panel and plexiglass, then contact printed using a UV light source. The panel is then washed and dried. This process is repeated for different colors and pigment densities. There are usually around 10-20 layers.