Painter

Artist Statement

Creative energy doesn't disappear. It finds a way out, whether or not you're paying attention to where it's going. For years, mine found smaller outlets: quick, visual, satisfying in the moment, but not built to last. It was real self-expression, just not sustainable or intentional. It was always going to come out one way or another.

Painting became that lasting outlet. I'm a self-taught artist, and I came to the practice later in life, during a period when I had nothing left to give, when I needed a way to slow down and actually sit with myself instead of constantly reaching for the next quick release. I grew up on the west coast and I'm now based in Toronto, and I've spent most of my adult life inside structured, achievement-driven environments. These paintings mark a shift: taking energy that used to spend itself quickly and giving it somewhere to build instead.

The works here live in the tension between structure and release. Built from layered surfaces and atmospheric depth, each piece takes shape slowly, forms emerging, dissolving, and resurfacing beneath one another, the way a feeling settles in over time rather than arriving all at once. My work is a quiet resistance to the pace of modern life. We have built extraordinary efficiency, and yet most of us struggle to find a single moment of stillness within it. When you slow down and look at the layers, something shifts. The eye stops rushing. The mind follows.

I want my paintings to create that pause, not to communicate a message, but to offer an experience: the feeling of being fully present, of noticing the small shifts within the layers, of finding depth in something that first appears simple. Where quick outlets and daily life often ask for speed, these pieces ask for attention instead.

That's what growing pains means to me here. Not losing your creative self, but learning to redirect it somewhere that actually holds. Creative energy doesn't disappear. It just needs somewhere lasting to go. This is mine.

These paintings are proof that the creative self was never gone. It was just waiting for a place to stay.