b. 1978 . New York
Personal Story
At the end of the 90’s I was living in NYC and studying at The Cooper Union. I taught myself the painting techniques of the Old Masters from books, local museums and of course long nights of practice. I also read everything I could find at the Cooper and NYU libraries about art history from the same time periods.
In the early 2000’s I moved to the island of Oahu in Hawaii and began heavily studying Buddhist and Native American teachings and practices.
In the later 2000’s I moved to Sag Harbor in the Hamptons where I taught middle school art for 3 years. During this time I focused on studying and practicing Zen Calligraphy, specifically drawing Enso.
Today I live in Mexico City and have devoted myself to the practice and study of Plein Air painting. I have found it to be an uncanny blend of all of my interests in the Arts and am relishing exploring its full range of potential. At the end of the 90’s I was living in NYC and studying at The Cooper Union. I taught myself the painting techniques of the Old Masters from books, local museums and of course long nights of practice. I also read everything I could find at the Cooper and NYU libraries about art history from the same time periods.
Artist Statement
Each painting session is for me an opportunity to meditate, to breath and to explore perception. In Buddhism it is often stated that everything is inherently empty or that an object is not really there as we believe it to be. Through Alla Prima painting I can explore this, very literally, as what I perceive disintegrates shifting to only values, hues, chroma, etc. It is an opportunity to remove labels from my experience for a time in a very focused pursuit that I can then have a document of to view and question afterwards. What was that experience? What was that particular moment that the Universe brought about through me?
The purpose and pursuit of my oil painting (specifically Plein Air) became clear after I considered it in the context of the other forms of art that I practice; Haiku, Butoh, Kung Fu and Enso painting. Each of these seemingly different art forms have one core thread connecting them: they each exist through the momentary experience of the creator and a relaxed awareness of the present moment.
In my Plein Air and Alla Prima painting as in Haiku or Enso, there is only one moment, one stroke, acceptance and moving forward.
Technical Development
[In Order Of Who I Studied With]
Much of my techniques and methods are self taught and vary too broadly to summarize here, however I have selected 3 early teachers and 3 recent teachers who have taught me ideas, techniques or methods which have influenced how I operate as an artist.
Early Influence
Early on I studied with Robert Slutzky who was my Color Theory professor at Cooper Union. Nothing is more mind blowing to an artist (or people in general for that matter) than realizing how much we take for granted in regards to seeing color. To this day my awareness of the nuance that color commands in our visual field continues to inform how I paint.
During this same time I had a literature professor named Brian Swann who uttered a single bit of guidance during a poetry critique that I will never forget. He said “What did you see!?” repeatedly and insistently to a student who was trying to be “poetic”. Many of us started this way thinking writing poetry was about some idea we had of sounding “poetic” which is not unlike having an idea about color until you actually start to consider and translate or describe what you see.
Finally during this same time I met and studied with Don Kunz. What he taught me cannot be put clearly into words but I got a real sense of the simplicity and resilience of the spirit of the artist from him. He represented it more than taught it and he had a quiet magnetism about him that can really best be summed up by viewing his paintings. He really attained something and it was seeing how his students interacted with him and he with them that I started to pick up on. I mean this with the utmost respect when I say that he was like studying with Yoda, I felt like a Jedi’s apprentice learning from him.
Recent Influence
My more recent studies have led me to techniques that come from fields more related to the spirit and the body. Such is the case with my brief encounter learning from Moena Wakamatsu, a Butoh performer who taught during my stay at CAVE performance center in Brooklyn in early 2012. This was some of my first exposure to Butoh as a practice but also watching how it was taught was almost more incredible. Each teacher has a seemingly different concept of what Butoh is and so each method of conveying that to students is unique. I haven’t even been able to fully process what I learned yet from my Butoh teachers.
Possibly my greatest recent influence comes from a completely different kind of artist; a martial artist. At the same time I was studying Butoh in Brooklyn I began intensive classes at the Shaolin Temple in Manhattan with Sifu Shi Yan Ming. I studied both Taiji Chuan and Kung Fu here and I was finally able to study the concept of Chi with direct experience of it as opposed to trying to grasp it from books. I only scratched the surface in my training but it was enough to reinforce a lot of my understandings about art and life that I will continue to work with in my studio practice to inform my paintings.
Finally just before my visit to Mexico I went to San Francisco to take a workshop with an artist I have long admired, Kazuaki Tanahashi. This was the first time I had met and studied with a teacher who I seeked out to learn from and the experience was remarkable. Kaz Tanahashi is a calligrapher who early in his career made giant single stroke brush paintings that greatly influenced my interest in Zen Calligraphy and expanded my understanding of it. The workshop was Japanese Calligraphy and focused on actual kanji writing. Not only was learning the very specific techniques of this beautiful art form important for me and influences how I use the brush today but seeing Kaz teach was sublime. In addition to meditation sessions and discussion of Dogen I will never forget him constantly asking in class, “Are you smiling?”
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