I adore the tactile, decorative, and connotative properties of paper as a medium and a tool. While no medium is off limits, more often than not I find myself incorporating my love of paper, books, and text into my work. My work is personal, and often includes self-portraits. It is sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, and sometimes blasphemous.

My mixed media works are collective imprints from my memories. I rely on my memories because I am drawn to the past. I combine images borrowed from pre-existing works (Polaroids, photographs, and prints) with printed matter, decorative papers, advertising debris, ephemera and other found materials. Often, fragments of text from old books and newspapers are incorporated. I save these things so that I can preserve their temporal context. I protect them from the time when they cease to be relevant and allow the materials to guide me towards becoming revered relics.

My Then & Now series of fine art photo collages explores working with the same themes as my mixed media works but instead uses photos of from the past edited exclusively using iPhone apps. While the premise is the same as that of my mixed media works, the process and end result is exceptionally different and unique. I was able to work on these images regardless of where I was because all of the photos being in my phone.

There a stigma attached to digital artwork and these works are elevated works combining a modern methods with old imagery.

“digital is taboo”

Monotype, for me, is a reconciliation of my intentions with the actual outcome, which is often a happy accident. I rely on both process and intuition while creating both abstract and representational works. The end result reveals a sense of structured spontaneity and along with degrees of texture and color that are unique to the monotype medium. Linocut is the opposite—when I desire control and a precise outcome.

Most of the books that I create are narrative. I relish the planning and idea phase, daydreaming, how will I tell the story, visualization, selection of materials, Technical details, mostly narrative 

Influences

Self portraits

Photography 

Text

Noir

Analog

Humor

Mortality/Death

Classics - Homer, Sophocles, Dante

OCD

Snapshots

France

Pop Culture

Death

Storytelling

New processes

Repetition

Graphic Design

New York City

Music

Influencers: Sophie Calle, Andy Warhol, Homer, Monet, Lenore Tawney, Cindy Sherman, Ingres, Virgil, Dante, Pop Culture

I adore the tactile, decorative, and connotative properties of paper as a medium and a tool. While no medium is off limits, more often than not I find myself incorporating my love of paper and books into my work. Sometimes I cut my prints and turn them into books, sometimes I cut my books and make them into collages, and sometimes I make books to tell a story. 

My books are self-portraits in the sense that they are collective imprints from my memories. Series of images and bits of text tell a narrative by subtly revealing a wealth of personal detail and cause for speculation. My work combines images I have created myself with those appropriated from other artists, pop culture, and ephemera. I approach each piece with a cynical sentimentality, which produces a work that is poignant and frivolous as life itself.

I make series of photographs that represent detailed aspects or time periods of my life. These aspects and/or time periods become magnified, not through an individual pictures themselves, but via the multitude of the images as a whole. I combine images that I have photographed myself with appropriated images by other artists and with pictures from the internet and periodicals. I relish in pop culture, humor and cynicism as use them as a means of telling my stories.

Each photograph in a series becomes a symbol for a tiny snippet of my life. The image looses its traditional meaning and takes on a new one as part of a group. A series of commonplace pictures creates an impact through massive volume and tells a story about myself that is revealing and often quite personal. I enjoy exploiting my own obsessive nature and presenting it to the world in a new way. 

I do not believe that each photograph has to be perfectly lit, printed or centered, as I am an avid fan of the snapshot. I love digital c-prints just as much as old-fashioned Polaroids. I combine these different types in a graphic, slick and very orderly manner. 

I use text to compliment my works. Sometimes my ideas for images stem from popular phrases or conversations I have heard or been a part of. Other times it is the idea for the image that comes first and when I see it, words or sentences come to mind. In this site related installation, Kiss On My Blacklist, I superimpose text over seventy-five pictures that symbolize all the men and women I have kissed throughout my life. 

I approached the chapter Nests with cynical sentimentality. I chose bits of text that appealed to me that I could combine with popular images to create a story that is both poignant and frivolous; we are born with our ideal dreams, we journey through life, we couple up and try to make a life for ourselves, and then we ultimately die. The underlying text JE CHERCHE UN PETIT NID PARFAIT (I am looking for the perfect little nest) is a metaphor for what everyone seeks in life...the perfect home, a coveted job, a comfortable seat on the subway, the winning lottery ticket, the best companion, etc. However, the story I extrapolated from Bachelard is about the journey of this process rather than the end result. The images were all printed on an inkjet printed using photos that I took myself.  The script was letterpress printed using polymer plates and the block type was letterpress printed using woodtype.  

Every work is a self-portrait, be it figurative or not. Series of images and bits of text tell a narrative by subtly revealing a wealth of personal detail and cause for speculation. My work combines images I have created myself withpaper, printed matter, and ephemera. I arrange the images and papers until the work reveals itself to me. Sometimes my ideas for collages stem from sentences, songs, or inside jokes I share with friends. Other times, it is a specific image that comes first and when I see it, I am compelled to build around it. None of the components are forced. I approach each piece paradoxically, with cynicism and sentimentality, and the end result is a work that is poignant and frivolous as life itself.