My paintings make visible the relationships between physical reality and the mind. Through analysis of my own compulsions for perfection and order, and research into mental health, psychology, the physical properties of nature, and philosophy, I seek a better understanding of the connection between mind and matter and its observable presence in the world around us.
To build upon my research, I have immersed myself into the study of OCD and hoarding disorder by conducting field research in the homes of people affected by these conditions. The knowledge gained through my interviews and the thousands of photographs I take during my visits have become integral parts of my process. By creating artworks based on these spaces, I have come to perceive our physical surroundings as a manifestation of the psyche. My paintings are more than representations of people’s possessions, they are portraits of their minds.
My goal with this work is to actuate a visual language which represents the workings of the human mind. Although my paintings engage with aspects of realism, abstraction, and minimalism, the mental processes I depict require me to seek out a different set of visual archetypes.
On Perfection and Order
My obsession with objects has little to do with what the objects are, but rather their physicality in relation to the space between and around them. The negative space is also an object. Its physicality is as important as that of the objects in their overall arrangement. Within my own space I am continually ‘correcting’ these arrangements to find their ideal balance. Although I can’t achieve perfection in my daily life, in art, I can.
My Perfection series and Order series study compulsions in pursuit of perfect order and represent the idealized state sought after by the minds of those affected by organizational OCD. Each Perfection paintings is accompanied by a diagram for installation which specifies the parameters of a rectangle to be painted on a wall and dictates the precise locations of the oil paintings to be hung within that rectangle.
On Collection
My Collection paintings are based on my field research in the homes of those affected by hoarding disorder. After attending a professional conference on Hoarding disorder, I started looking at people with the disorder differently. I had greater empathy for their situation and I began seeing their environments, and the things they collected, as a symptom of their disorder, rather than piles of random objects. During my research, I had visited with a woman who conveyed to me multiple stories of traumatic events in her childhood. I took notice of the way in which she told me the stories. She was very precise in her descriptions of the details; down to specific dates, times, the age she was, and the places in which these events occurred. When I looked around her home, I saw how, in essence, her hoard was her “proof” of this past. I have only scratched the surface in trying to understand the ways in which trauma may be evidenced in the objects with which individuals choose to surround themselves. By making paintings based on these environments, I hope to better understand the correlation between the two.”
On Relics
Intrigued by the ways that we often save broken objects after they no longer serve their function, I have observed that our attachment is not so much to the object itself, but rather, to the meaning or memories we associate with it. “Relics” explore these psychological relationships and the import with which we imbue inanimate objects. These paintings bring those associations to life. Embedded within each painting is a short original film I have created that is revealed through the use of augmented reality technology on a mobile device. What appear to be traditional still-life oil paintings become liaisons to a past remembered.
AUGMENTED REALITY DEMO Click video to see how the AR technology works.