I’m an artist and I focus on painting
change I was a teenager when the Getty
opened in Los Angeles and my uncle and
father took me there I still remember
walking down the galleries with mild
interest until I came upon the
impressionist pieces I walked right up
to one of them this is Claude Monet’s a
detail of his wheat stacks snow effect
morning 1891 I could see the texture all
I could see was a the painting the
details the brushstrokes the juxtaposed
color it was a vivid experience and when
I took a couple steps back the painting
changed a couple more steps back
painting changed again it was the same
painting but somehow different somehow I
was interacting with the piece which at
the time seemed impossible kept taking
steps back into us in the back of the
gallery and walking forward I realized
later on that this was a very profound
experience for me and led to me deciding
to buy start a kit of oils and start the
painting one night turned into two per
week two three until I was painting
almost every night I was really into
painting studying at UC San Diego I was
taking courses in psychology and
chemistry no art classes at all but I
would go into the art studio late at
night where I could be alone and focus
on process of painting the results
weren’t that great but I enjoyed the
process and there was nobody there to
tell me that it was wrong at some point
I had an epiphany I realized that I
would rather pursue my inspiration then
wake up one day regretting that I had
never taken that risk so I bit the
bullet I quit my job in science research
and enrolled in art school move
to San Francisco and I can’t say it was
an easy period 15 years later but here I
am still doing what I love every day my
recent paintings focus on moments of
change and these moments of change
reflect a larger scope of time and
hopefully meaning start off by exploring
cycle of psychological concepts in two
dimensions using drawings and I combine
drawings with photographs to create
something new and inevitably there’s
going to be a conflict and the painting
becomes about resolving that conflict
and hopefully an interesting and
meaningful way I use abstraction along
with realism realistic techniques to
kind of make the painting more vivid and
provide a sense of mystery and maybe
leave a little bit less explained
abstraction as well as expressive
brushstrokes part of my work and I find
when you take when combining imagery
together and you take figure out of its
element and put it into something new
the meaning changes and sometimes the
meaning is ambiguous and I think that’s
a good thing the drawings make their way
to layers upon layers of thick paint
applied on top of stencils which I make
and every layer responds to the previous
layer so the painting is really about
that process of discovering and forming
something new and because of that every
painting is different
this one has some pixelation which
references digital photography and our
social media age and counter-intuitively
actually makes the painting more
painterly also surprisingly geometry and
hard edged shapes can facilitate
movement
duchamp’s nude descending a staircase
number two is a big inspiration here
also referencing film in these paintings
as movement is signaling maybe a bigger
symbolism movement in one’s life aspects
of memory foresight into the future
personal identity and I always think
about the audience every step of the way
how the viewer can enter in the painting
and interact so I leave some parts
unfinished and mysterious so that the
viewer can draw their own conclusions
and I’d encourage you all here today to
think about what you can bring to the
table think about how you can be active
viewers right
by engaging in the process and thinking
about art is something that you can
interact with you could have a more
profound experience and you don’t have
to be an artist to engage in art work
take a few steps back take a few steps
forward interact with the art think
about what the piece means to you so
that leads us to this painting over here
which won’t be finished here today I’m
going to remove the tape but it’ll be
pretty close what I’ve done is covered
the figure and some of the surrounding
areas with tape and applied paint and
the reason I use these hard edged shapes
from masking tape or stencils is to
create a disparity between depth so
things will move forward and move back
in a dynamic way sometimes with
conflicts and I feel like this call the
conflicts really help the process of
painting and make the piece more
energetic and also may be useful for the
viewer to access so the viewers can
actually see the different layers right
you can actually interact with the piece
and the hope is that when people look at
my finished work they’ll they’ll have
that finished they’ll have that sense of
engagement and then the piece will be
finished so I’m going to close here
today with removing the tape and this is
going to be a surprise for you as well
as me not exactly sure what’s going to
be underneath although I have a pretty
good idea but you know painting is all
about the process so we’ll see how it
turns out
[Applause]
okay thank you
[Applause]
you
change I was a teenager when the Getty
opened in Los Angeles and my uncle and
father took me there I still remember
walking down the galleries with mild
interest until I came upon the
impressionist pieces I walked right up
to one of them this is Claude Monet’s a
detail of his wheat stacks snow effect
morning 1891 I could see the texture all
I could see was a the painting the
details the brushstrokes the juxtaposed
color it was a vivid experience and when
I took a couple steps back the painting
changed a couple more steps back
painting changed again it was the same
painting but somehow different somehow I
was interacting with the piece which at
the time seemed impossible kept taking
steps back into us in the back of the
gallery and walking forward I realized
later on that this was a very profound
experience for me and led to me deciding
to buy start a kit of oils and start the
painting one night turned into two per
week two three until I was painting
almost every night I was really into
painting studying at UC San Diego I was
taking courses in psychology and
chemistry no art classes at all but I
would go into the art studio late at
night where I could be alone and focus
on process of painting the results
weren’t that great but I enjoyed the
process and there was nobody there to
tell me that it was wrong at some point
I had an epiphany I realized that I
would rather pursue my inspiration then
wake up one day regretting that I had
never taken that risk so I bit the
bullet I quit my job in science research
and enrolled in art school move
to San Francisco and I can’t say it was
an easy period 15 years later but here I
am still doing what I love every day my
recent paintings focus on moments of
change and these moments of change
reflect a larger scope of time and
hopefully meaning start off by exploring
cycle of psychological concepts in two
dimensions using drawings and I combine
drawings with photographs to create
something new and inevitably there’s
going to be a conflict and the painting
becomes about resolving that conflict
and hopefully an interesting and
meaningful way I use abstraction along
with realism realistic techniques to
kind of make the painting more vivid and
provide a sense of mystery and maybe
leave a little bit less explained
abstraction as well as expressive
brushstrokes part of my work and I find
when you take when combining imagery
together and you take figure out of its
element and put it into something new
the meaning changes and sometimes the
meaning is ambiguous and I think that’s
a good thing the drawings make their way
to layers upon layers of thick paint
applied on top of stencils which I make
and every layer responds to the previous
layer so the painting is really about
that process of discovering and forming
something new and because of that every
painting is different
this one has some pixelation which
references digital photography and our
social media age and counter-intuitively
actually makes the painting more
painterly also surprisingly geometry and
hard edged shapes can facilitate
movement
duchamp’s nude descending a staircase
number two is a big inspiration here
also referencing film in these paintings
as movement is signaling maybe a bigger
symbolism movement in one’s life aspects
of memory foresight into the future
personal identity and I always think
about the audience every step of the way
how the viewer can enter in the painting
and interact so I leave some parts
unfinished and mysterious so that the
viewer can draw their own conclusions
and I’d encourage you all here today to
think about what you can bring to the
table think about how you can be active
viewers right
by engaging in the process and thinking
about art is something that you can
interact with you could have a more
profound experience and you don’t have
to be an artist to engage in art work
take a few steps back take a few steps
forward interact with the art think
about what the piece means to you so
that leads us to this painting over here
which won’t be finished here today I’m
going to remove the tape but it’ll be
pretty close what I’ve done is covered
the figure and some of the surrounding
areas with tape and applied paint and
the reason I use these hard edged shapes
from masking tape or stencils is to
create a disparity between depth so
things will move forward and move back
in a dynamic way sometimes with
conflicts and I feel like this call the
conflicts really help the process of
painting and make the piece more
energetic and also may be useful for the
viewer to access so the viewers can
actually see the different layers right
you can actually interact with the piece
and the hope is that when people look at
my finished work they’ll they’ll have
that finished they’ll have that sense of
engagement and then the piece will be
finished so I’m going to close here
today with removing the tape and this is
going to be a surprise for you as well
as me not exactly sure what’s going to
be underneath although I have a pretty
good idea but you know painting is all
about the process so we’ll see how it
turns out
[Applause]
okay thank you
[Applause]
you
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