PARALLAX //work in progress//
2026
Oil paint on canvas
72x48”

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I am a maximalist painter. I take refuge in the details, and take my time in the “slow build” of oil paints and glazes.

Figurative realism has been one of my continuous interests for decades now. My early jonze for the works of Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo de Merisi aka Caravaggio stands true today. Even in our deep digital age I am turned on by chiaroscuro - the interplay of light and shadow.

This new artwork, PARALLAX, finds me exploring my youth, and how I survived the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s. To have been in my prime in a physical sense, and to have been emotionally devastated on the inside… this was my predicament. I was not alone, as my queer friend groups ALL struggled with how to learn and navigate romance and intimacy whilst a literal plague was shadowing us at every turn. At the clubs. On the subways. Every touch, every breath. It did not help that there was scant information and indifference from the US government and President Ronald Reagan. Young men were dying, fading quickly, and there were funerals every weekend. Young twentysomethings are not prepared for such loss, and for many us, our families were not supportive of our lives, and cast immense shame when we became ill and died. How to paint the exasperation that I was feeling 365-24/7? *The sword in my hand - to hack away all the bigotry and grief in my path. It felt like end times from age 21 to 35… my lost youth and fading bloom.