Each time I bring pencil to paper the image of a face seems to appear. The people closest to me influence my work the most: I like to paint my brothers, my father, my close friends. These are the people who have shaped my emotional, social, intellectual life, as well as my artistic sensibilities. Of course, you can never get away from yourself; in each of my portraits I see glimmers of myself.

When painting a portrait, I like to work fast, to maintain a certain energy in the work and to concisely capture the moment as well as the personality of the subject. My mediums are oil on canvas and charcoal on paper. I like the fact that these are traditional mediums with a long history and tradition; they are standard materials but they are also the mediums used by the Renaissance artists.

I am influenced by the Great Masters of the Renaissance, but I also love the late Impressionist painter, Pierre Bonnard and the Abstract Expressionist painter, Elaine DeKooning. Bonnard's sense of color is modulated and complex. He uses many colors to achieve a uniform tone, a technique that when applied can create a mirage of life and movement within a two-dimentional surface. For Bonnard, each square inch of a canvas has the same value - the subject is no more or less important than the background. DeKooning's paintings are defined by her use of brushstrokes and the appearance of a quick hand. My process and technique is influenced by DeKooning. I generally work with a digital reference at hand, and let my hand move my brush loosely and intuitively. I use color to capture the sense of depth.

I believe we impact each other in our interactions. and as an aspiring educator I hope to influence my students the way my subjects have influenced me.

Artist Highlights

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