Coming from a background of intensive observational painting, I have become increasingly interested in challenging the frozen nature of the portrait and still life tradition. I create work that captures the most chaotic motion imaginable, that of disaster and crisis. In so doing, I offer insight into the heightened awareness that so often emerges at the precipice of change.

Sliding backwards in slow motion, the Chevy symbol closing in on your windshield is a perfect square on top of a parallelogram. As time slips, light slows, bends and breaks to reveal a fractured reality that intensifies the minutia and overlooked. There is an elongated instant between realizing you are knocking over the glass--frozen in action by the glistening beauty of your spilling drink--and the shattering of the tumbler on the floor. As your hands clench whatever is in reach and your veins bulge, you suddenly notice how your skin has thinned with age.

The protracted moment of a crisis redefines the logical structure of time, and creates a heightened awareness to one's sensory perceptions. The liminal space between abstraction and representation allows my work to portray not only that which is static, but also dynamic and in flux, heightening the timeless nature of the medium.

Thematically I let the color and images reinforce the chaotic gesture that follows scenes of tragic experience, such as flooding, crashing vehicles, and collapsing infrastructure. In “Floating Through The Flood” an umbrella, floating out of reach, disintegrates into the smoke, as a false sign of hope engulfed by the floodwaters. The flood reorganizes space in a way that is particularly congruous with the logic of my combination of abstract and representational image construction. I want the color in my work to reiterate this sense of disorientation and confusion through the collision of a vivid palette with muddy debris.

Born of intuitive gesture, my paintings develop an internal structure out of which I manipulate and distort space. I begin each piece with large impulsive gestures that are initially syncopated with personal memories of crisis. In “US 127,” I began furiously smearing bright orange and dark umber with a large squeegee in order to set the backdrop for a nighttime construction zone. My wide range of surface application creates an abstract space from which I extract forms and move the painting into tangible representation. In "US 127," I define construction barrels, roadblocks, and overpass trusses.

My work reveals that we are perpetually teetering on the edge of disaster. From the safety of the gallery, I invite the viewer to embrace the clarity that arises from crisis. I am interested in reproducing the dynamic rush of chaos that warps time and heightens perception. The disorientation within this liminal space is meant to offer insight into my own creative act, while the abundance of information enables the viewer to reorder this world toward her own understanding.