Village Hidden Among Us Painting

Born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens, NY, my life has always been one of creative enterprise. The first real influence on my work was my older brother (who later became a sculptor,) who drew really cool space ships and aliens. Soon I made my way to the comic book collection we shared and began copying images of Superman and Flash. As my crazy teenage years came upon me, my interest in doodling in my notebooks turned into a full scale dedication to the art of cartooning, inspired by the underground comic movement. After high school, I attended the School of Visual Arts (SVA.) The environment opened me up to many ideas and possibilities that I had not seen before. It gave me the opportunity to work with Burt Hasen, Jerry Moriarty, Barbara Nessim, Marshall Arisman and Irwin Fleminger. After I left art school, I needed to find paying work and found it more reasonable to work as a graphic artist than to carry boxes in a warehouse. As I progressed, my skills multiplied. I have worked as a designer, art director, retoucher and illustrator. My drawn illustrations and collages have been published in The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, trade publications, magazines, local newspapers and comic rags. My first and only comic strip, "The Stranger," was a regular feature in Free Spirit Magazine and was also republished in a comic collection, Snicker Magazine which was based in St. Louis. The paneled comic featured no dialogue or annotations and told the story only through rendered pencil drawings. In the 1990's, I soon began to work at digital collages in Photoshop, with my work being recognized by the International Digital Design Association of being among the top 100 internationally. The work was a way of expressing social commentary in a unique manner. By the use of photographic imagery, an idea could have a powerful emotional impact. After the World Trade Center fell, I lost interest in pursuing the social commentary of digital art and returned to my foundation as a drawing artist. I began to cross hatch feverishly with pen & ink, producing well over a hundred intricate drawings in the years 2004 - 2007. These labor intensive works have been displayed in solo and group shows in and around Brooklyn. After this period I began producing mostly scratch boards and small black and white ink drawings. In addition to my drawing, my attention is frequently diverted by my interest in fingerstyle guitar.