Personal

b. 1987, Lancaster, PA

Currently lives and paints in Portland, ME

Education

• 2012

  Maine College of Art, Portland, ME: MFA Studio Arts

• 2010

  Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA: BFA Painting and Drawing

• 2008

  Temple University Rome program, Rome, Italy

Awards

• 2011

  Roderick Dew Travel Grant

• 2008

  West Award for Creative Achievement

Selected Exhibitions

• 2011

  MECA Annual Art Auction: ICA at MECA, Portland, ME

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  Boston Young Contemporaries: Boston University Gallery, Boston, MA

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  A Summer Salon: Three Graces Gallery, Portsmouth, NH

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  MFA Retrospective: Maine College of Art, Portland ME

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  We Believe in Everything: Leonard Craig Gallery, Unity, ME

• 2010

  MECA Annual Art Auction: ICA at MECA, Portland, ME

• 2009

  The Good Fight: A BFA Exhibition. Stella Elkins Tyler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

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  Chestnut Hill Main Street Fair, Chestnut Hill Hospital, Philadelphia, PA

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  Clambake Supreme: Paintings. Stella Elkins Tyler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

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  Paintings: Tyler School of Art Exhibition, Chestnut Hill Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

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  Final Frontiers. XIV Collaborative Space, 504 South Street, Philadelphia, PA

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  Student Retrospective, Stella Elkins Tyler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

• 2008

  Group Exhibit, Temple Gallery, Rome, Italy

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  Open Art Exhibition, Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA

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  Festa di Roma, Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA

• 2007

  Paintings: Tyler School of Art Exhibition, Chestnut Hill Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

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  Open Art Exhibition, Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA

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  Paintings: Solo Exhibit, Union National Bank, Lancaster, PA

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  Interior Spaces, Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA

• 2006

  Foundation: Painting/Drawing Exhibit, Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA

• 2005

  Scholastic Art Awards, Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA

Statement

Contemporary image-making is a force that constantly reinvents itself. I think the purest forms of art are those that are executed when the degrees of separation between the working mind and the moving hand are minimal. A painting or drawing does not necessarily require a serious amount of invested time to be successful, but rather it gains an agreeable quality from awkwardness, immediacy, and the denial of resolution.

My current body of work explores the translation of narrative. I use characters and objects from nightmares, news stories, traditional folklore and fiction and spill them onto a blank page to construct a complex, new situation. The empty space acts like a stage upon which these figures can interact and perform. I am particularly interested in masks, mutations, arctic temperatures, vessels, armies, amputations, uniforms, misgivings, and aftermaths.

I think the most successful paintings are those that betray the viewer—that at first seem pleasant and playful but after a prolonged amount of time grow absurd or unsettling. In this transition a painting becomes more than just an image.