2021-24 | Cambrian

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Against all odds life on Earth has withstood an unrelenting tide of cataclysms and mass extinctions. At the core of life’s story is the great unifying and mysterious urge to survive. It is a lineage of hope that spans eons. I am deeply inspired by the story of life and how we retrieve it through the study of fossils. The title of this series references the Cambrian explosion, a time in history when complex life forms began to radiate rapidly. In this series the subject matter of my work went through a rapid expansion. I moved away from portraits and figurative images made from photographic references. Instead, each new drawing or painting began as a primordial soup from which a living event could emerge. I would start by laying out the medium, either charcoal or paint, in an intuitive way. I cannot explain in any exact way how the location, size, or direction of the initial marks would come about. It was somewhere between chance and a subconscious stream. There was a pivotal moment in each event when I spotted a glimpse of life in the slurry. I would then consciously work to define the edges of the event until it fully materialized out of the ooze.

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In cases where a work did not perfectly fit the themes of a series, I placed that work according to date. I placed these less related works at the bottom of the page.