About

Artist’s Statement:

Pastoral Fallacy

I grew up in the suburbs, a place where carpets of manicured green lawns hid the unruly lives of the people who lived there. I call the suburbs a pastoral fallacy, an illusion of harmonious lives lived in pastoral perfection. I was a creative gay kid and I hid that part of myself to feel safe in a homogenous, heteronormative suburban environment. Hiding and revealing are recurring themes in my art practice.

A career in landscape architecture prepared me for making art about my personal landscapes. Much of my work is centered on imagery from the suburban landscape of my childhood. The physical landscape is my emotional landscape. The yard of my childhood home appears in many different forms in my work, including dark drawings of dandelions, drawings and paintings of lawn chairs, and large-scale drawings of close-up images of trees and shrubs rendered in big gestural marks. I use a lot of dark tones to suggest loneliness and hiding but I also work with color and light to convey revelation and hope. My landscapes eschew the picturesque, exploring how I am shaped by the places around me.

Deconstructed lawn chairs and webbing are materials that I use to build sculptures about my personal stories. I also make sculptures using conventional materials like steel to make small lawn chair sculptures, and unconventional materials, like carved upholstery foam, to make large, sculpted heads.

My work is spontaneous and direct, resulting from a flurry of action preceded by a period of careful consideration of an object or memory. I usually do not go back and rework a piece. I strive to capture the moment of making with gestural marks and unrefined details.

Group Exhibitions:

2025
Continuing Education Annual Juried Student Exhibition (First Prize), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, USA

2025
Art of the State, State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA, USA

2024
Continuing Education Annual Juried Student Exhibition (Honorable Mention), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, USA

2023
Continuing Education Annual Juried Student Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, USA

2022
Continuing Education Annual Juried Student Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, USA

2020
Uncertain Times: Creativity Amidst Pandemic and Protest, La Quinta Museum, La Quinta, CA, USA

Education:

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, currently enrolled in the Certificate Program- Studio Residency

The Florence Academy of Art, 6-Week Intensive Course: Drawing, Painting, and Art History, Florence, Italy

University of California, Berkeley, Master of Landscape Architecture

The Ohio State University, Bachelor of Science of Landscape Architecture