Misunderestimatin'
This group of paintings represents my earliest explorations with figurative art. Inspired by source images that range from vintage “Dick and Jane” illustrations, to contemporary advertising and photo-journalism, this series explores the disorientation and contradictions that I associate with being a product of both the Cold War era and the Internet Age – a span of less than half a lifetime. The hapless characters in my paintings inhabit disastrous scenes that are complicated by the intrusion of giant starbursts, stripes, bubbles, and other graphic elements. The central drama in these paintings concerns naivete and hubris. I consider them to be proxies for my own experiences.