I first began exploring art through photography. The ability to capture a fleeting moment to reference later is what drew me to that medium. As an oil painter I use that skill to inform my artwork. My current series of interior and exterior urban landscapes developed during quarantine. Feeling nostalgic about the places and people I was unable to see, I scrolled through my camera roll.

I discovered countless snapshots of exit-signs, glowing hallways, and neon-lit windows. The ambiguity in these colorful transitional spaces intrigued me. Pulsing colors can provide energy and excitement or trigger anxiety. Neon can represent a packed nightclub or a lonely exit sign. This dissonance mentally resonated.

For painting reference, I digitally altered the photos - removing people, playing with perspective, dramatically cropping - to highlight the mystery, atmospheric light, and often-overlooked details I noticed in these urban spaces. And the subjects’ artificial colors provided a dream-like virtual world for me to investigate, via oil paint, the surprising subtleties found within bold color.

Using both digital and physical paint to inform my process, I create artworks that can function as environments to enter, explore, and, at times, escape into.