Smells Like Hot Jazz Print

Currently with my pieces I strive to use classical figures and traditions in a contemporary manner, to turn an ever mindful eye towards the history of art to reinterpret current social events. This hope to tackle subject matter with an eye towards social consciousness has led me to strive and push my limitations with various media, experimenting to find some way to comment on and attempt to tackle modern issues through art. This outward turn towards influences must also be meet with the inward turn as well and I reflect on my own Buddhist beliefs through art and experimentation, and by exploring a deep fascination with the iconography of Christ, Mother Mary, and those around them in the Western art tradition, as so many of these images formed the basis for my experience of fine art. During these explorations I will be turning to modern artists like Julie Mehretu, whose abstract compositions, with strong linear flow mixed with organic expressions create a visual plane unlike few others, and Eileen DeKooning, who serves as a critical and poignant innovator of abstract expressionism and who I have found a profoundly personal bond via her teaching of my professor and mentor Stan Sporny.