Artist's Statements through the years.
09.2019
“Choose your own adventure.” Advertising uses incomplete narratives to sell an idea, product, or lifestyle, and I also use incomplete narratives for my ideas. In a way I am like Courbet, exaggerating reality to make a point. The idea for my narratives can come from anywhere: my personal life, literature, popular culture, music, film, history, humor, the news, advertising, something I witness, and just random inspiration. Like an out of context film still, I want the narrative to be open ended so that the viewer can place themselves in it and finish the story their way.
02.2018
“D'you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr. Holmes? However hard you try, it's always a self-portrait.” There is something of myself in everything I create. I am deeply concerned about contemporary events in the world, but my art is connected to a deeper and more primal arc of humanness that connects to, and transcends, the crisis of the moment. Ultimately my art is about “timeless questions of the human condition.”
07.2017
It’s always some sort of self-portrait. Travel in Time.
05.2017
Any idea is worth making. Do not get paralyzed by doubts...fuck it, be free! Some ideas are inevitably better than others--the worst that can happen is the creation of something more beautiful than the negativity and nothing that already existed. The important thing is to keeping creating, and to never stop, the good ideas will emerge on their own.
06.2015
Travel, see the world--Life is too short and too precious to waste on anything that is joyless and friendless.
07.2010
I'm not really inspired by my own problems anymore, or at least not directly. More and more I'm inspired by history. History shows my problems to be trivial.
04.2010
The metric is mine, and I'm happy about it. Living it is the whimsical challenge.
04.2006
My own anxieties drive my work. Always have. That and I'm surrounded by stupid--stupid is inspiring and funny.
02.2006
I'm not making any effort to delineate between good ideas and bad ideas. They are all just a bunch of ideas. It is quite liberating.
11.2005
As I get better at making my art I seem to get worse at talking about it. I find it continuously more difficult to speak in grand terms about what my art means. I just paint amusing or frustrating images that pop into my head. The true meaning and content typically reveal themselves during the making. The form mutates as the conceptual significance grows clearer. My brain is smarter than my conscious mind, it makes connections, that become apparent to the conscious me, after the initial moments of humor or frustration.
04.2005
I'm not creative. I recognize greatness and steal it. Lately I've been stealing from my self.
04.2002
It is not the duty of the artist to tell people how to think, rather the artist conveys to the public how he or she thinks so that individuals may evaluate their own thought processes. It is in the interest of all society to understand their true surroundings--understanding and awareness stir the thought process and therefore incite change as well.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Kleine Gemälde, Stuttgart Germany 2021
New Year Exhibition, Ossam Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2021
Art Is…, Arte Sono, Stuttgart Germany 2021
Exchange, Shirley Fiterman Art Gallery, New York NY 2020
PSWT Open Studios Redux, Ossam Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2020
Open Studios Exhibition, Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, Brooklyn NY 2020
ArtWe NYC, Online Exhibit, Brooklyn NY 2020
BBFL Virtual Covid-19 Exhibit, Brooklyn NY 2020
New Member Exhibition PSWT Artists, Roots Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2020
PSWT Artists Spring Exhibition, Ossam Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2020
PS 295 Annual Art Auction, PS 295, Brooklyn NY 2020
Group Dynamic, Fiterman Art Gallery, New York NY 2020
A Wow Moment, Lynn and Carl Goldstein Gallery, New York NY 2019
Fiedler’s Choice, Cargo Art Space, Brooklyn NY 2019
Solo Exhibition, Cargo Art Space, Brooklyn NY 2019
PS 372 Spring Art Auction, PS 372, Brooklyn NY 2019
PS 295 Annual Art Auction, PS 295, Brooklyn NY 2019
Artists Exchange, Hammans Gallery, Stuttgart Germany 2018
Small Works, Limner Gallery, Hudson NY 2018
In Form, Fiterman Art Gallery, New York NY 2018
Shhhh, Art Salon, May the 12th Exhibition, Queens NY 2018
President’s Day Exhibition, Harman Salon, Brooklyn NY 2018
People’s Choice, Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2017
The Coffee Art Project, Allegra Group, New York NY 2017
Kristiina Wilson Studios, New York NY 2017
President’s Day Exhibition, Harman Salon, Brooklyn NY 2017
People’s Choice, Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2016
President’s Day Exhibition, Harman Salon, Brooklyn NY 2016
Hjärtat Berglöf, Stockholm, Sweden 2015
President’s Day Exhibition, Harman Salon, Brooklyn NY 2015
Bronx Community College Faculty Exhibition, Hall of Fame Art Gallery, Bronx NY 2014
Roller Derby Artists Exhibition, Crashpad, Brooklyn NY 2013
The Coming Singularity, The International Gazette, Brooklyn NY 2012
In Defense of Love, Pine Box Rock Shop, Brooklyn NY 2012
One Line Works, DiGrazia Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2012
Bronx Community College Faculty Exhibition, Hall of Fame Art Gallery, Bronx NY 2012
Roller Derby Artists Exhibition, Crashpad, Brooklyn NY 2011
Bronx Community College Faculty Exhibition, Hall of Fame Art Gallery, Bronx NY 2011
Art and Text, DiGrazia Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2011
Bronx Community College Faculty Exhibition, Hall of Fame Art Gallery, Bronx NY 2010
Roller Derby Artists Exhibition, Crashpad, Brooklyn NY 2010
Solo Exhibition, Gallery MC, Phoenix AZ 2009
Bronx Community College Faculty Exhibition, Hall of Fame Art Gallery, Bronx NY 2008
Land E-Scape, South 4th Gallery, Brooklyn NY 2008
(An)Aesthetic, Revolver Gallery, New Brunswick NJ 2007
Le Trou Gallery, Whitehall NY 2007
MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson AZ 2006
Recent Work, Park Place Gallery, Tucson AZ 2006
Ventana Fall Art Exhibition, Ventana Gallery, Oro Valley AZ 2006
Choose Your Own Adventure, Treo Center, Tucson AZ 2006
Todd Walker Gallery, Tucson AZ 2006
Rejected from Salon des Refuses, Dinnerware Art Gallery, Tucson AZ 2005
Red Shift Blue Shift a curated online exhibition, Tucson AZ 2005
Seven Ages of Man, Lionel Rombach Gallery, Tucson AZ 2005
MA Thesis Exhibition, University of Northern Arizona Museum of Art, Cedar Falls IA 2002
University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art, Cedar Falls IA 2001
Sverdrup Gallery, Webster University, St. Louis MO 1999
Radford Gallery, Elsah IL 1998
Holt Gallery, Elsah, IL 1997
Maybeck Gallery, Elsah IL 1996
AWARDS, LECTURES, AND PUBLICATIONS
Studio Visit Magazine, Volume 41, Open Studios Press, Boston MA 2019
International Training Camp guest speaker, Manchester United Kingdom 2016
Faculty Development Grant, City University of New York 2015
European Roller Derby Organizational Conference guest speaker, Berlin, Germany 2015
International Training Camp guest speaker, Stuttgart Germany 2014
International Training Camp guest speaker, Helsinki Finland 2012
WFTDA Annual Conference guest speaker 2010
Faculty Development Grant, City University of New York 2009
WFTDA Annual Conference guest speaker 2009
WFTDA Annual Conference guest speaker 2008
New American Paintings, Volume 60, the Open Studios Press, Boston, MA 2005
Albert Haldeman Scholarship, School of Art, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 2005
Fellowship, Graduate College, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 2004-2005
Strategies Against Architecture, University of Northern Iowa Press, Cedar Falls, IA 2002
Tostlebe-Ray Art Scholarship, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 2001-2001
Marie Cogswell Art Opportunity Award, Principia College, Elsah, IL 1998