Ibiza Night Print

Travel helps connect us with the simple pleasures in life: a sunset, taking a walk, enjoying the sights and sounds of a place you’ve never been before. My newest works explore the idea of removing the complexity from the places I visit, leaving only the brightly colored memories. Negativity surrounds much of our world: through politics, environmental issues, and senseless violence. I choose to make my work a simple, less complex body of work. My urban landscape series began with Baltimore city, where I took pictures of my neighborhood. I took pictures of the alleys and streets, focusing on the obscure and nondescript rather than the skylines and tourist areas. I created roughly 50 paintings that focused on photo-representation of these images. I began traveling the world and exploring different places, realizing that every place has its own color palette. The most current series explores the neon color palette, which is a palette associated with Miami, Peru, and the Caribbean. With the discovery of color, I realized the joy in simplifying shapes and examining the effects of light. In my current body of work, I’ve examined the effects of black light and neon oil color. I’ve experimented with size throughout the series, working from as large as six feet to as small as five inches. This current neon series has mostly small pieces with the smallest pieces being 5” x 5.” I like these pieces as small representations because they are like little jewel boxes that hold small, brightly colored memories.