statement

My current artwork explores the sense of foreboding for the future that exists within the malaise of contemporary culture. Inspired by the tower of Babel story, and informed by history and current events, this work seeks to relate the present to the past, with the intent of pointing toward a, yet to come, universal decay. Like many of my favorite romantic era painters, the work presents the sublime as a critique of the hubris and as a circular theory of history.

In my drawings, the natural color of the unprimed canvas acts as the light within the drawing, and every touch on the surface is recorded as a stain or mark. Working on this surface is similar to executing a water color painting in that the lights must be predefined, because once the canvas is soiled it is impossible to reclaim that light. In this way, the method in which these works are created demonstrates the obfuscation of history and the decay of absolutes that accompanies the post-modern condition. Furthermore, by creating large drawings on canvas, I expose my own artistic uncertainties about painting and drawing.

Conceptually the works are dire, but in my attempts to preserve the light within these drawings I feel that I am striving to maintain hope in all the wreckage. Hope to alter the course of the present, and hope in a future that will transcend the failures of today.

bio

born: 1984, Des Moines, Iowa

education

University of Florida, MFA, 2013
University of Kentucky, MFA, 2009

selected awards/honors

Faculty Choice Award, College of Fine Arts Juried Student Exhibition, University of Florida, 2012
Theophilia Joan Oexmann Award for Merit and Leadership, University of Kentucky, 2009
1st Place Award, Helen C. Byrd Undergraduate Drawing Competition, Faculty Selection, University of Kentucky, 2009
1st Place Award,Carey Ellis Juried Show, University of Kentucky, 2008

selected publications

Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center; Manifest Vol. 73, 7th Annual MASTER PIECES Exhibition. Cincinnati, Ohio: Manifest Press, 2013
Florida State University; 28th Annual Tallahassee International Exhibition. Tallahassee, Florida: Museum of Fine Arts, 2013
The Painting Center; Natural/Constructed Spaces Exhibition. New York, New York: The Painting Center, 2012
Lexington Art League; Paintpresent Exhibition. Lexington, Kentucky: Lexington Art League, Inc., 2009

selected solo or two-person exhibits

University Gallery, University of Florida, The Inauspicious Present, Gainesville, Florida, 2013
Focus Gallery, University of Florida, Fragmentation, Gainesville, Florida, 2012
Barnhart Gallery, University of Kentucky, Seeing in Tongues, Lexington, Kentucky, 2009

selected group shows

Linus Galleries, Curves & Lines, Los Angeles, California, 2015
Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University, 28th Annual Tallahassee International, Tallahassee, Florida, 2013
Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, 7th Annual MASTER PIECES, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2013
The Painting Center, Natural and Constructed Spaces II, New York, New York, 2012