How We Make It And Survive While Trying; Struggling For An Extraordinary And Peaceful Life.

How we make it and survive while trying, struggling for an extraordinary and peaceful life is a series of mixed media paintings, watercolors, and graphite studies that investigates success and the American Dream. Referencing concepts of self-determination, Protestant work ethic, and divine providence, I am challenging whether these beliefs contribute more to improving our lives or maintaining inequality. For this series, I am looking beyond barriers associated with race, gender, and self-identity to appeal to more of a visceral connection by focusing on our common struggle.

Anchored in the human form and tension, the work is a personification of manipulative forces. On wood panels and canvas, I build up and strip away layers of paint and graphite on a collage of enlarged sketches, found book pages and printed material, creating a visual representation of the conflict between the ideal and reality. Each work is a focused part of a more comprehensive story. Dissecting complex thought into individual pieces allows me to experiment freely with compositional strategy: like using negative space and selective development to steer the viewer's entry into the work. I am striving for immediacy and contemplation simultaneously in each piece. 

Inspired by fellow Brooklynite Walt Whitman, each piece is meant to stir questions not necessarily presented for answers, but to force open the soul. This project will be a record of a pursuit: searching for paths towards cooperation rather than domination. I hope that it will be a vehicle for empathy and an invitation for each of us to change.