Omniasvanitas

As far as accreditation goes, I am an University of Saint Francis Alumni with a BA in Studio Art and a BA in Art history. I am a curator, throwing shows independent of museums and galleries, although I have volunteered and interned at several museums to learn the tricks of the trade.
But onward to what is really important, the "sparknotes" of my painting process lies herein:
When I stretched a canvas for the first time, I knew that I was a painter. I began drawing and painting a little over five years ago; my first instructor taught me the limitless possibilities of creation. “Execution and emotional state,” he told me, “paintings are like snowflakes.” Since the beginning of my exploration of paint, every canvas that I have made contains an experiment of color, composition, and light. As my work has proliferated, I am able to see that I am moving toward the marriage of idealism and distopia. I want my viewers to feel comfortable through my color scheme and composition, but uncomfortable at an insinuated tension of subject or texture. Irony plays a large role in my decision making process throughout the creation of a painting.
The nature of a gala or gallery opening is of a social occasion. This provides a more relaxed and conversational atmosphere than of a critique or lecture where the “meat and bones” of a piece are discussed. My target audience being all viewers instead of only historians and critics leads my imagery and style be ridden with associations instead of reference. I try to make art that is easy to read, but provocative in a way that forces the viewer to consider their own views of whatever they see.
The medium most prevalent in my work is oil, but most pieces are combinations of different materials. It is important to my process to include combinations of mediums that will ultimately result in the decay or destruction of my work. The theme of life’s boundaries and death are subject matter or content that is a steady theme through each drawing or painting. This being said, I do not consider myself morose nor am I obsessed with “doom”. Often these subjects only surface in the face of conceptual thought. But as a part of giving the viewer a change in their experience of perception, I tell them that their world and everything in it is limited. What then is the value of pleasure and pain? When our experiences and emotions are fleeting, does that not make them precious? As quoted from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life:

“Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, that's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, a sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see are moving at a million miles a day in an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour, of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.”

Dualities or ironies also play a large role in the process of my work. Colors that are the furthest from each other on the color wheel are the ones that I force together. I mix oil and water based materials together before I apply them to a canvas. Even the canvas itself is organized in a way that brings together associations of how a subject is viewed usually, and then how I have changed the way it is viewed. The textures of decay with the subject of bones and skeletons themselves seeming like a depressing subject actually serve as a reminder to me how wonderful life is, and I then in turn create paintings to relay this message to the viewer. The irony in this is that it is unusual for a person to walk away from your work understanding what you are trying to say. Everyone takes a different message from the same unchanging source.