Artist Statement(s)

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General Statement (Paintings)

My works are primarily an exploration and visual representation of the self as an image. It is in this iconographic style, that I aim to evoke a conversation about identity, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, while illustrating the way we use these labels to simplify society as a whole. My use of geometric form and a limited palette typically classifies my paintings as abstract. However, my use of color is symbolic, as each color represents different segments of the world’s population. Therefore, the shape, position, and size of the colored forms become a comment on race, class, stereotypes, and identity in America and the world. The relationship among the colors is a revelation about domination, conflict, separation, and harmony among races and cultures.

My use of color in my paintings, reduce complicated matters of identity to simple elements, much like society does. The tension created between simplistic forms representing complex subjects allows the viewer to contemplate how the presumptions and reactions of others affect how we see ourselves. By compartmentalizing these divisions within a culture, I aim to catch the viewer in some level of profiling and preconception. By this subversive confrontation, I hope to challenge the viewer to question where they stand in the mix and contemplate the depth of one’s own identity.

The painting New American Minority can be seen as a comment on how irrational fear and misunderstanding toward the arrival of Asian peoples homogenizes a variety of cultures and identifies them as “other,” The work could be viewed simply as a classic minimalist painting, but a darker side of my vision surfaces only in the title where the true meaning of the colors are revealed. The contrasting colors form a visual tension between black and white lines that symbolize black and white America, while the interjection of yellow lines that symbolize Asian America represents the struggle to integrate into an already segregated society.

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The Holding Pattern

The Holding Pattern. The subject, attractive women in their mid 20s to late 30s, superimposed upon their faces are decorative patterns, the combination of which brings to the surface ideas of symetry, objects of decoration and feminity.

The pattern acts as both a decorative element while at the same time as a buffer or seperation point from the viewer. The issues that society place on young women to perform professionally, marriage, produce offspring, build a family and home environment we all ideas that inspired this project.

Experimentation and evolution are essential to the development of all artists. In my opinion, an artist’s worth is based on his or her ability to grow and change with his or her surroundings and to also inspire transformation and progress in others. The future of my work is in finding a balance between the precision my artistic approach and the paradox presented in the questions I explore. I am continually fascinated by the apparent contrast between new and old and I strive to find a place where preservation meets innovation. While employing the modernity of clean lines and bold colors, the familiarity of icons plucked from popular culture’s past along with interpretations drawn from my own experiences, I hope to accurately depict my experience and define my voice as a member of contemporary American society. Within this juxtaposition of contrasting forms and subject matter, I hope to impart a sense of originality, an astute commentary on modern society and the creation of a unique graphic vision for the future.

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The Beauties

As much of my work tends to generate new ideas for new work, the visual simplicity of my paintings petitioned for a contrast that could only be brought about by photographic images of the human as a subject, in both form and concept. My photographic work ranges from universal visions of social structures to intimately personal visualizations of individuals, setting the work just so far from that of my contemporaries. In these works, I also explore my personal struggle to meet the demands of a blended racial heritage. With the levity of disguise, I am able to vastly change the superficial ‘first impression’ that I present to the world. By dealing with the weighty subjects of ethnicity and sexuality through this dissection and multiplication of my own identity, I attempt to shed a playful and often humorous light on contentious issues.

The Beauties Series, which includes Staying Warm, Fun in the Sun, and America’s Most Beautiful Debs, are an example of works that explore conventions of beauty and sexuality as I decipher their connection to myself through digitally manipulated advertisements from vintage Ebony Magazine and Jet Magazine Beauties of the Week. As this series evolves, I've begun to use this imagery to explore my own identity by digitally superimposing my face onto the original images. The future of the series is to employ this style and approach to including additional images of men as well as women, thereby examining the often indistinct borders of modern sexual identity.

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Equilibrium (Deco) & Equilibrium

In my Equilibrium (Deco) Series, I have begun to juxtapose two movements in the history of art and design — Minimalism and Rococo — opening up each piece to the viewers’ own interpretations on decoration, pop art and pattern. I frequently explore balance, symmetry and harmony in a post-painterly minimalist style. Recently, my experimentations with positive and negative space have developed into a more intricate intersection between geometric and curvilinear shapes. Vibrant colors and high contrast create precise visions of order and joy, inviting the viewer to come closer. However, the order, joy, conflict, and tension represented in my work are not incongruous. The various colors and shapes are combined to conjure up a positive, multifaceted, and realistic outlook on the future of relationships between seemingly disparate components of society.

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The Kentucky Gentleman

In The Kentucky Gentleman Series, I aimed to present an individual as seen through a kaleidoscopic lens of multiple races, not only allowing the viewer to enjoy the aesthetic transformation, but also leaving one to contemplate the complexities of race and class stereotypes, and the depth of one’s own identity. I was compelled to create the Kentucky Gentlemen Series as a comment on my ethnic heritage and the experiences that are connected to that heritage. As a member of contemporary American society with a difficult to define ethnic makeup, I hope to leave us all questioning the disparity between what comprises us as individuals.

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