Tell a little bit about how you first got into creating art.
Growing up in Washington State, I spent a significant amount of time outdoors hiking, climbing, and photographing the Cascades. As a photographer, the difference between seeing a landscape in a photo and actually experiencing it in real life can be a difficult gap to bridge. My goal was to create photographs that approximate a closer feeling to the real experience of being out in nature. In 2021 I moved to Chicago for medical school. Continuing to get out and explore nature became more challenging logistically, so I picked up painting in order to continue pursuing that original goal of creating art that conveys the grandeur and subjective context of a real experience.
I picked up painting in order to continue pursuing that original goal of creating art that conveys the grandeur and subjective context of a real experience
What artists or movements have had an impact on you?
The paintings of Joshua Shaw have always inspired me in how they convey thematic elements of isolation and natural beauty.
What is your source of inspiration?
There is a strong contrast between the day-to-day of living in a dense city like Chicago and my previous experiences spending significant amounts of time in the wilderness of Washington State. After living in the city over the last four years, my recollections and nostalgia of having a stronger connection to nature have inspired many of the themes in my paintings.
By painting memories, the art encompasses more than just the details of a scene
What themes does your work involve?
Solitude, nature, memory, and the human experience.
What is important to you about the visual experiences you create?
The way that the art makes someone feel when they first look at it. The process of memory has been demonstrated to be more of a reconstruction of events based on context, emotion, and even suggestion rather than an exact recollection of a moment. By painting memories, the art encompasses more than just the details of a scene.
Do you work from memory, life, photographs, or from other resources? Describe your creative process.
Most of my art originates from memories of particular moments in my life. To me, portraying the subjective and emotional context of these memories is more important than recreating the exact details of the scene, and I use lighting, color, and thematic composition to enhance the portrayal of certain themes. I’ve found the best way to recreate these memories is through iteration. I’ll add a small amount of detail at a time and revisit the painting to add additional small layers and detail over a time period of several weeks rather than attempting to recreate the scene all at once.