Strong sensory imagery of my childhood in the wilderness remains when I paint. The feeling of dew in my hair, of spider webs grazing past my skin, and the smell of oak trees. These experiences prodded a magnetic pull towards the natural world from a very early age as well as the conscious understanding that I could always see a reflection of myself in wilderness. I could see myself in the roots of a banyan tree, and in the eyes of a leopard. As a result of my rootedness in the wild, my work as an artist focuses on deconstructing the ‘human’ to reveal the innate primal animal within us all.
To me, each piece brings forth the common path that all living beings walk on with the collective goals of survival, security, and peace, and questions the evolutionary status of human beings as compared to other species. Each painting offers the idea that the stronger the connection to the natural world, the closer we are to deconstructing the complexities of the human experience, eliminating desire, and tasting liberation – even if it is fleeting.
