Statement

Since childhood, drawing has allowed me to respond to internal and external stimuli through its immediacy and accessibility, proving itself to be both the ultimate comfort and the ultimate challenge. Much of my work is informed by my upbringing in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains where organic and inorganic decay, infrastructure, landscape, and local wildlife are frequently used as means to explore conceptual avenues. Avenues such as rapid urbanization, socio-economic disparities, environmental concerns, and the underlying absurdities indicative of the region are unearthed during the cathartic state I experience while drawing. The subject matter I gravitate towards requires a certain level of patience and intimacy that reveling in meticulous, delicate, mark-making can provide. I explore my subject matter through direct observation, photographic references, digital collage, and memory recall. This constant feedback loop of visual information as it passes from physical perception, the mind’s eye, and to my drawing hand allows me to transform my source material into new visual amalgams. This process allows for the unseen, absurd, or otherwise limbo states within my drawings to be born through material resonance and multiple lenses of observation.