Academic Training

I am sometimes asked when I started painting, and my usual answer is that I never stopped. Children paint, but most stop to focus on other things. I did not stop painting and I had the privilege of being brought up by parents who recognized my artistic compulsion and nurtured it.

I studied painting at Florida State University while earning my degree in design. I studied live figure painting with Mark Messersmith.

Independent Learning

I was working at my first office job in 2005 when I realized that I needed to keep painting independently in order to improve. I had a foundational understanding of how to work with oil paint thanks to my university instructors, and I recalled the feeling of peace I'd had when painting nudes in class.

Lacking my own models or a studio, I began sourcing my images from Live Model Books.

I chose my subject matter intuitively until I understood the origin of my inspiration. The mystical, magical nude and semi-nude women who visit my work are spiritual healers. My culture and my family's religion taught me that my physical self presents a barrier against achieving a completely spiritual state. True mystical ecstasy and liberation were only accessible, it seemed, by the dead.

My archetypes represent a fully present and fully transcendental self. They heal my spiritual wounds and serve as a lantern to guide me through the darker chapters of my existential journey.