We each live behind our eyes.  We live together, we act on and react to each other; but always and in all circumstances we are alone.  Sensations, emotions, insights - all of these are private and essentially incommunicable, except at a second hand distance.  From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.  In order to get by, we cut ourselves to pieces and reassemble ourselves out of the desires, fears, loves and losses which we each carry with us.  We do this in the mirror of self perception, and the final product always contains a melancholy beauty which strives desperately to overcome our essential loneliness with hopeful shouts across the void.
 
My work is about telling life stories through portraiture.  The story of every character is written both in and on their flesh, each with all of their dreams and hang-ups clearly, though sometimes cryptically, exposed for the world to judge.  The minute details of their lives are there to be seen as well, but of course, they are not always understood, at least not clearly or in the proper context.  This is due to the fact that the viewer brings their own life and experiences to each piece in order to identify with and understand the image in front of them.  By consulting the library of their own past, the viewer brings additional meaning to words out of context, tattoos, symbols, and the spoken words of the eyes.
 
For these reasons I have only minor interest in explaining a particular mood, emotion, or series of events that inspired an individual piece.  I am much more interested in what the viewer brings to the equation; the way in which my work fits into their own self portrait.  That is why I leave each piece to live and breathe on its own, to rise or fall on its own merits, and to shout its own story across the void.