The speed of change our generation lives with, introduces many complexities into our lives that are often hard to get our minds around. It’s even harder to think up a visual image that completely sums up any one of those complex changes. But that pairing of an easy to understand visual image with one of life’s complexities is what I achieve in my work.
My Modern Life Series uses childlike renderings to simplify and present sophisticated adult conditions. Children’s drawings inspire me because they simplify images down to their essence and use color without reservation. I make simple images with vivid color and pronounced light dark contrast to catch a viewer’s eye and draw them into the picture. I make each image to communicate the idea behind the piece to the viewer, without them having to decipher it, freeing them up to make an emotional connection with the image and its subject at the same time.
Works of art that you can instantly picture in your mind just by thinking about them or hearing their title, also inspire me. Once you’ve seen Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” with its melting clocks or Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” their images stick in your memory forever.
I create images to become a permanent part of the viewer’s visual memory.
