An art enthusiast approached me with two burning Questions; "How did you..." and "What do you... "

I'm never really sure how to answer these types of questions without bursting into artistic rhetoric.

If you'd have asked Francis Bacon, he'd have said; "The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."  By nature, I'm a hyper-active chatterbox who can go on for days at a time ranting about art technique, theory and philosophy.

Yes, I'm a right-brained power nerd.

To a point, I agree with Mister Bacon; nothing spoils the rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick more than knowing that the rabbit was hiding in a secret panel all along. However, I also feel that giving a viewer a peek into an artist's methodology not only helps to make their work more accessible but also more tangible. So with this page I hope to satisfy both points by answering as many questions you might have in as vague a manner as possible...

I have often been asked what I have against working digitally. I don't have anything against working with vectors per se, in fact, many of my proposals and concepts utilize digital methods. But for my final production, it's traditional all the way. I take my cues from the great masters. I paint on wood panels. For me, they introduce a beautiful, organic sense of imperfection that I feel compliments my tight, graphic style of image making. My work is my legacy and it would kill me to see it vanish during my own lifetime. I think of when I stood within the Sistine chapel and beheld Michelangelo's ceiling. It's been centuries since it was created, and yet the master reaches through time and connects with me. That's something I want my work to do for future generations: Inspire.

Digital media is simply not capable of offering me that.

None the less, having my work mistaken for digital output or even screen printing stands as a testament to my compulsively meticulous nature and methodology. I am reminded of Rodin – my greatest influence, and how he was often accused of making life-casts of his models. In truth, though I often work from photo reference (be it found images or material that I shoot myself), all my work begins as a hand-rendered drawing.

Always has, always will.

I feel that there's an art to art that many self-proclaiming artists fail to embrace. My work does not merely begin and end with the final image; it starts with the pure pigments I mix my paint from and ends with my signature. From glazing and brush techniques to sacred geometry and the golden ratio, my methods parallel the old traditions, just applied to contemporary themes. That said, I also believe it is vital to push forward and challenge myself. I am forever exploring new ways to present my vision without sacrificing longevity. Put simply, to stop learning, growing or developing – in my opinion, would be creative suicide. 

In my observations, I have watched society evolve with our technology by training us to absorb a great deal of information with light-speed intensity. This I feel, has caused us to become an impatient people with a tiny, collective attention span. Recognizing this shift in communication, I altered my visual language to eliminate whatever I consider to be unnecessary information. Abbreviate. It's the difference between babbling and being articulate. In this way, I hope to invite the viewer to fill in the gaps with their own content as a sort of visual ad-libbing. In the end, my goal is to open a dialog, perhaps subliminally, and present an after image that lingers in a viewers mind.