Biography
I was born on December 18th, 1976 in Warren, Ohio. I received my Bachelor of fine arts from Kent State University with a minor in education in 2002. I began teaching art classes at the high school level in 2003 in the town I grew up. In 2010 I graduated from the Youngstown State University with a Masters of Arts. I started adjunct work at the university level in 2015 as a Ceramics instructor at Mount Union University, as an Art History instructor at EGCC, and teaching Foundations of Drawing and Art Fundamentals through the Youngstown State University.
My education has been concentrated in painting; however I enjoy the field of ceramics and often use a mixed media approach to all my work.
I have been involved with many local shows and galleries, including The Soap Gallery of Youngstown, Ohio, Gallery 29 of Sharon, Pennsylvania, and The Mac Worthington Gallery of Columbus, Ohio. I work both as a gallery artist and commissioned artist.
Artist Statement
My work is about the silent conversation that is had between the visual elements of an aesthetic interaction of media and my subconscious mind. I consider my work to be the evidence of a silent conversation that is held between the visual elements of an aesthetic experience and a human need for organization and comprehension.
I treat my paintings as experiments that have the power to create personal insight through my own reaction to the forms created by the application and natural interactions of media. The content of the work is often guided by my reaction to an arbitrary image that has transpired through experimentation of media. The works become about the cooperation between chance (chance being outside circumstances: such as gravity’s pull on a fluent paint or the collaboration of hues as two colors of wash connect) and the artistic decisions I make after an initial composition is established.
The composition that is created from the initial organic process usually triggers image recognition and/or imagination as it asks to be reacted to and enhanced by the additional elements created by my hand.
My finished works become visual evidence of human interpretation, decision making, and artistic manipulation as I interact with the natural world.