THE WORK- The viewer of my paintings experiences sensory overload. One is hungry or repulsed when served hunks of deteriorating meat shown in my work. Paint is applied like icing to suggest slabs of beef. Crimsons form pools of iron-drenched blood. Subjects in my work appear both as predator and as prey—violent and butchered, sexual and suggestive. Viewers are confronted by muscle, skin, tissue and fat. Other forms can be read as phallic or vaginal.

Throughout my works, both abstract and figurative elements are contained in a dynamic landscape space. Inanimate objects take on human aspects and are brought to life through actions—crawling, slithering and leaping.


At the beginning of this series, my paintings were brooding and moody, portraying ambiguous scenarios. Beef emerged into the bleached light as viewers searched the looming, undecipherable shadows. Cached in undefined spaces, forms sparkled like embers in juicy variations of red and brown.


But in my newer works, meat has taken on more specific characteristics, and I design groupings that relate and interact with each other. Each component springs to life in a panic of anxiety and flirtation. The mood can be both invasive and contagious. Saturated colors cannot help but spread and create scab-like abstractions that eat and infest at the understated background.

In search of subject matter I scavenge freezers and markets for meat, buying specific items such as organs and animal parts. I incorporate the meat into environments that I build. Some set ups spread across tables and jut from walls; recent environments are miniature. I photograph these models from various angles and collage them to manipulate space. Using the collage as a reference, I further distort the image while painting.