1. The Hummingbird

Oil on Canvas, 30x40in, 2025

I started this series with inspiration from Italian Futurism—a movement born from a desperate need to destroy the past and glorify technological progress, celebrating war as "the world's only hygiene." The Italian Futurists presented their work with speed, dynamism, and aggressive angles. Over 100 years later, we're living through our own obsession with technological advancement and artificial intelligence.

This painting borrows that sense of speed and movement, but complements the dynamism with natural forms. It's my way of questioning our current technological obsession and its consequences. The emergence of a hummingbird figure became a fitting symbol: nature's own embodiment of speed and grace.

My process for this piece set the foundation for the paintings that followed:

1. Spontaneous expressive marks to establish energy and movement

2. Carving out shapes through shadow and light

3. Deepening values while simultaneously creating forms

4. Final highlights to bring it all into focus

2. A Pollinator Only Thinks of Harvest

Oil on Canvas, 30x40in, 2025

I try to start every painting in a different way to experiment and push myself outside of my comfort zone. For this piece, I wanted to use warmer, brighter colors instead of my typical gravitation towards cool dark tones.

3. Exposure

Oil on Canvas, Diptych, 24x36in (61x91cm), 2025

This piece was originally supposed to be two separate paintings, but as I worked, I realized I needed the image to span both panels. The split became necessary.

4. Anima/Animus

Oil on Canvas, 30x40in, 2025

This painting emerged through automatism—an impulsive, intuitive process where the image revealed itself as I worked without a plan of what it would become. What started as an abstract space gradually transformed into two beings with a seemingly symbiotic relationship.

I went through many iterations that didn't feel right. I kept pushing, carving forms, leaning more toward surrealism than abstraction until these somewhat regal creatures emerged. They felt familiar—like Jung's concepts of the anima and animus, the feminine and masculine aspects within us all, meeting in partnership and igniting balance.

5. Planes of Entanglement

Oil on Canvas, 24" x 48", 2025

The foundation for this piece started with a Celtic pattern, but I shifted its perspective from 2D into 3D space. I was also inspired by Igor Stravinsky’s Fireworks set designs from Giacomo Balla (1916-17). The initial design looked interesting on paper, but oftentimes the feeling of my sketches don’t translate to the canvas and begs for more complexity. It was a still life that needed tension.

I’d like to go beyond visual interest into a lingering feeling of something unresolved.

6. The First Migration

Oil on Canvas, 36" x 36", 2025

I used to work at a TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) clinic which is an innovative neuromodulation therapy for treatment resistant depression. When I was cleaning up the clinic waiting room one day, I found a small piece of paper tucked in one of the magazines; on it read:

This poem has stuck with me for quite some time and I have found myself indulging in the symbolism of birds for their sense of freedom through flight.

Concluding Thoughts _______________________________________

These six paintings have allowed me to appreciate the beauty in transformation. Each piece begins with uncertainty and finds truth through the delicate process of control and surrender. I find myself drawn to the contrast of the natural world (flexibility) and manmade systems (structure). Through my paintings, I hope to discover a visual language for the unresolved—our murky internal landscapes and the futile desire for clarity.

CURRENT

▶ Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/0fDf7Fo4Lb6DA1mmKibSNc?si=9e9f950f820a4e98