What facsinates me about painting in a realistic manner is the ability to render environments that might evoke mood states or memories in a viewer; or to create a field whereby objects appear to occupy space, possess orientation, have texture and even temperature. Each painting’s subject matter presents a different challenge to me—a different way with which to understand the objects and environments I’m trying to represent. At a very specific yet always unexpected moment during the painting process the piece jumps to life and communicates something to me that I don’t get in the same way when I’m looking at the source photograph. For me, the finished painting becomes a living thing and possesses a soul of its own. Instinctually, the subject matter I gravitate toward has a lot to do with growing up in L.A. during the 70’s. The style of that decade, the design, the music, the manufacturing palette...I experience it somewhat as a mother tongue. It was the first visual language I understood and feels both comforting familiar to me whenever I see it now. Though my work may appear photorealistic, I do not call myself such. I am not committed to reproducing the exact and entire content of a photograph, nor could I ever hope to have the patience to! As opposed to painting towards pure objectivity or subjectivity, I am looking for a middle ground between accurate representation and something more lyrical. I also tend to paint the Human figure out of my work so the viewer can enter into the space or narrative of the painting by themselves.