My artistic explorations through imagery almost always begin with reflections on both external and internal landscapes. They’re honest evaluations of trauma, mental health, and philosophical ponderings on purpose, meaning and the mysticism tied to those facets. They are the results of a constant effort towards healing, understanding self, and placement of self in the physical world. The self portrait is a common reoccurrence in my work because of my open evaluation of personal experience. I study realism and landscape because of the rigor of nature, the skill and meditation needed to mimic it, and for the settings that envelope the moments in our lives. I practice surrealism because the psyche is a prism that these environments are filtered through. They’re taken in, fanned out and revealed, then refocused and projected through the lens of ourselves. Our perspectives. I question “What does it look like after the experience of life?” and “What are the moments when the nature of things needs no more a spectrum than what is there?” The correspondence between silent admiration in the present and the thoughtful reflection on those moments stirs up the content of my work. Sometimes the thoughtful is rooted in the psyche, composed of symbols of the natural rather than the physical places as they are observed optically. Instead, the fragmented spectrum that’s filtered through the fractured self. Naturally, those fractals consist of both the shadow and the light.