Sustainable Eating

I was raised in rural Wisconsin, which greatly influences my artwork. An electrician's son, I became comfortable working with tools and building things at an early age. Growing up in a farming community influences the subject matter of much of my work and helped develop my appreciation for resourcefulness and handmade objects. This, coupled with my need to constantly draw, is directly reflected in the work I produce.

My primary choices of visual communication are installation art and painting. This work integrates my personal history with basic emotions I feel about the world and its inhabitants. I explore situations as personal as meeting someone on the street and as global as reacting to foreign policy. I approach these subjects from a guttural level, working more like a compulsive laborer than a calculating technician.

I choose to work with simple art materials and exploit their expressive qualities. My painting is a constant negotiation between energetic mark making, reflection, and practiced restraint. I work on cheap or found materials with house paints, acrylics and ink.

I create installations that synthesize painting with constructed 3-dimensional environments. By creating confined spaces and objects that overwhelm their surroundings I encourage viewers to alter the way they view (and contemplate) the work. These installations require viewers to compromise their comfort in order to fully experience the work.

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