Education:
2007        Bachelor of Art in Painting and Drawing, University of Alabama in Birmingham

Fear has always been a part of my work as an artist. Since I was very young, I have worried about the things that went bump in the night. My parents always assumed that these fears would diminish with time. However, as I grew older, they only seemed to intensify. My paintings examine not only the irrational fears I felt as a child, but also an attempt by the subjects of my paintings to control their apprehension, to protect themselves from harm and finally to dominate what they feel would do them harm. Over time, I have found that the paintings I see as a symbol of childhood terrors evoke responses in the viewer that makes them feel nostalgic and emotional. My attempts to capture an ephemeral moment of memory showed me that many people have similar recollections of strange situations and creepy rooms.

Each work is highly personal to me and contains a catalogue of symbols that express the emotionality of fear and the struggle for control. Religious iconography plays a large role in the ongoing development of this vocabulary and I am constantly searching the history of Christian art for the deeper meanings of everyday objects, colors and situations. I also combine certain aspects of fine art and knowledge of the mediums I use with non-traditional found objects and paper that root the art to the everyday and are a large part of what makes the paintings speak so intimately to the viewer.

My goal as an artist is to have my work elicit a personal and emotional response in the audience, one that makes them examine their own memories, dreams and histories and search for the sameness in the human experience and what makes us beings of both greatness and terribleness.