My current work is a series of labor intensive, realistic oil portraits of the detached heads of women.

The cognitive mechanism of the “uncanny valley” occurs when the human likeness produces disquiet and disturbance rather than empathy because it triggers the salience of morality, defies human norms, throws mate selection, and challenges the religious definition of identity or “soul.” The more familiar the likeness is, the more sublimely eerie it becomes.

 The uncanny valley is associated with a more general psychological occurrence in which perception is distorted by categorization. Painting and its relationship to “beauty” is fraught with a history of categorization. I find the subject of “feminine appearance” and assumed aesthetics to be culturally unreal (braindead), and therefore an inviting subject for realism and investigation. 

These are paintings of those I know and care about, and working slowly and deliberately on their portraits offers a meditative space to examine the human head. 

I also teach wet-into-wet oil painting technique. My works smaller works on paper and linen are done onsight from live models, they show the energy of working from life, among other painters. In these works, am interested in creating a psychological and emotional space in an abbreviated image. I work on scrap material and leave the edges unfinished to emphasize immediacy. The backbone of my painting practice is combining technique with contemporary thought.