ARTIST STATEMENT

In my work, I explore and question representations of male subjectivity and the body through reference to both personal and larger narratives of masculinity. I focus on the body along with its various contexts and implications, playing with representation and personal experience. I am interested in concepts of loss, relationships, romance, humour, idealism, the self, and the ways those concepts all influence or shape identity. I am also interested in the dichotomy between reality and fiction which informs the way figures and forms of the body exist within my paintings. I enjoy representing figures in imagined spaces, and in doing so, implicating them in these spaces. This places them in a state of flux or transitory states in which their identity is not fully represented or realized, as are the figures themselves. By representing the body often in a form of self-portraiture or projection of feelings and experiences onto figures of the male form, I identify myself with these images almost as characters or stand-ins that represent both myself and others, whether personal or archetypal. I explore the way I situate myself and how I relate to these stories. I use personal events, both past and present, to create narratives that can speak to feeling and absence thereof, as well as identity and struggle. Through these paintings, the intersections of both personal narrative and the narratives of male subjectivity can become visible.

     My work is primarily oil on canvas. I enjoy using large canvases as I am interested in creating big pictorial spaces that encompass these narratives to the fullest degree, even with the parts I choose to omit. Using these traditional materials and within a contemporary context, I am concerned with the way I place myself within the notions of the traditional male painter and other notions of normative masculinity/representation. By accepting or subverting traditional notions of the male body, I look at what it means to do this in a contemporary timeframe and as a male artist.

    My paintings though often ambiguous, give the viewer elements to create stories between the interaction of figures in the work, but also keeping elements of those stories for myself. It is a constant play between what I reveal and what I keep hidden and my own struggles with identity within that. I want people to see the emotion or underlying connotations of the work whether they know the full story or not, and let them connect with the work in their own way. I am interested in representing characters in strange situations as aspects of myself, but also as placeholders for larger narratives of masculinity.