The Butterfly Catcher, 2004

Visit: www.orthogonal.us The main thrust of what I do deals with issues of representational abstraction. Throughout all of my work I approach this, building my pieces from nothing and paying close to the manipulation of gesture. I like to explore the notions of origin, and I like calling origin into question both with the concepts and the actual work that was created. I strongly rely on process, movement, and intuition as guides and try not to have too many firm intentions at the beginning of each piece. When I go to work on my works on panel, it’s integral to me to have a catalyst. Be it thoughts on global politics, interpersonal relations, or simply responding to the immediate atmosphere, it’s important for me to use that energy to get the pieces moving. In other times I like to focus more closely on the marks themselves and become interested in smaller areas of detail and patternwork. I like to think of it as being essential to challenge the mark and the material while challenging personal themes within the work at the same time. The piece eventually becomes enveloped by these experiments, and it is then that I can get a feel for how it comes together as a whole. I work predominantly in simple terms such as gesture and monochromatic value until larger themes start becoming apparent. I use the massive verticality of the hanging panels coupled with the sharp contrasts of the monochromatic materials to allude to Japanese screen painting, though the marks themselves were arrived through experiments in Abstract Expressionism. Stylistically, I like to think of my large works as being a meeting place between East and West and I hope to push this in the future.