Artist Statement:

In my current body of work, I explore moments and spaces through realistic watercolors and drawings. Place is very important to my practice, and many of these images depict New York City, Oakland, California, Philadelphia, and other places I’ve lived and traveled through. The artworks contemplate how our physical spaces are charged with the richness of our cultural, spiritual and emotional landscapes, even when people themselves are absent. Often, my paintings frame small moments of public expression created by others - gestures that are at once quiet - almost unnoticeable - and at the same time powerful and poetic: an offering of flowers placed on the splintered trunk of a tree downed by a summer thunderstorm, items left on an artist’s grave in the rolling hills of Iowa, a palimpsest of graffiti signatures, the way someone arranges objects in a window. I draw my imagery primarily from personal snapshots, translating these into detailed renderings. My work owes much to the tradition of documentary photography and its intention to capture a glimpse of a place and time, to freeze a fleeting moment, to bear witness to life as it is.