My Artist Statement...

“It’s like fireworks exploded with paint brushes as they went down the sky!” Esch Snoats.

My work is a manifestation of my belief in freedom, diversity and hope. I believe in a world culture where everyone is accepted and considered equal. Unfortunately though, I do know that I’m in a world where people are judged and stereotyped based on labels and appearance. I believe that my art works to cut through these labels by connecting people and communicating on an emotional level.

I am the type of person who is always looking… looking for shapes, colors, expression in everything around me. When my work is seen, I want the optimism, energy, passion to resonate. I want people to get a sense of freedom, of diversity and to see the color in life. I want them to feel a charge, a moment of exhilaration that their life is better because of the color I bring to it. I want them to be challenged to consider their own lives. I want them to think about the endless possibilities of what can be accomplished both individually and collectively.

My primary concern is with color. Specifically, how pigments interact and create visual tension with each other. I like to manipulate paint, mix it and push it in different directions. I work with different colors to see how they interact with each other. I let them play off each other.

Artist Wassily Kandinsky said, "Colour is the key. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many chords. The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically." I believe that music and art help shape our soul. I believe that we need to be moved to act, to change, to love, to pursue, to search… and art can do this.

Like many postmodern artists, I use unconventional methods to create and communicate my ideas. I normally paint on whatever is available, whether canvas, wood or metal. Rather than using a paintbrush, I use a wooden spoon, or a blow dryer to play with the paint. Sometimes I spread the paint directly from the tube, or thin the paint and pour it onto the canvas using the blow dryer or gravity to let the paint flow. I am often on the floor with the canvas getting ‘into’ the paint as I pour, drip, spread and blow the paint around. I literally put myself into my works.

I tend to use the same colors over again. I sometimes paint on older canvas, often using previous works, to use the texture underneath. I like the bumps and different surfaces and how the paint flows over them in different ways. Whether with a palette knife, or pouring it on and blow-drying it, the textures can be obstacles that the paint has to work around. My colors come from my optimistic view that the world can be a better place. My patterns and textures come from the visual stimuli around us.

I am currently involved with how new media helps artists explore and experience new ways of connecting with the world. My physical artworks are subsequently digitized and uploaded into Second Life, the Web 2.0 virtual reality world. In this environment, the emotional impact is enhanced through my deliberate manipulation of scale in each artwork; they become grandiose and powerful expressions after having been enlarged to sizes greater than life. This venue offers an amazing multicultural platform, in which my art is able to connect with people throughout the world on a creative as well as very psychological level.