My use of engines are in some sense a fusion of ideas that have been percolating for a while. The organic nature of these inorganic static structures is alluring. The bright colors and crisp shapes of these forms stand in opposition to their original form that I extracted from photographs.
In 2016, I started making collages that were based on both engine images and the “engine” sculptures that I was making out of E-waste. These collages distilled and flattened shapes and gave me a whole new realm to explore with the paintings. In 2016 and 2017 works have evolved experimenting with color interactions and, most recently, bringing back a certain three dimensional illusion to some of the shapes.
I like to think of recent pieces as some sort of surreal architecture with passageways and levels. There is a mechanical, structural nature to the work while shapes are often softer and more organic in nature.
I can site artistic influences such as Charles Burchfield, Francis Bacon, Charles Sheeler, Marsden Hartley, Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism. These sources and others have certainly influenced a lot of what I am working on now.