Artist Bio
I am an artist, designer and DJ living and working in Oakland, California. I grew up in the city of Boston, working as a painter and photographer for Artists for Humanity, a non-profit afterschool arts program that employs Boston Public School students as professional artists. During my six years with AFH, I exhibited and sold my paintings and photographs in galleries, civic spaces and offices throughout Boston.
From the beginning, urban architectural forms and environments were the central motif of my artwork. My early paintings captured the dynamism of the city’s pulsing transportation infrastructure, chaotic construction sites and encrusted urban decay. This passion for exploring the rapidly changing urban environment led to my interest in architecture and urbanism and ultimately compelled me to study both architecture and art history at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2004, I relocated to the East Bay area to pursue a Master’s degree in Architecture at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. During my graduate studies, I explored the architectural and educational possibilities for the replication of the Artists for Humanity program here in Oakland. The design and research of the spaces for artists has contributed a great deal to my development as a painter. My architectural education has nurtured an understanding of form, composition and urbanism that has helped me develop a language of architectonic abstraction to describe the spaces I inhabit.
My current work is split between large painted works on canvas and small collages on paper. These abstract yet spatial compositions explore urban landscapes both real and imagined, capturing the textures, colors and sensations of the cities in which I live and have visited, such as Oakland, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Philadelphia and Boston. The interlocking shapes and dripping colors in these works blur the boundaries between constructed and natural forms, land and sky, growth and decay. My work as both an artist and designer is informed by the unending processes of transformation that shape the city, and will continue to develop as my understanding and experience of my environment advances.