This two-piece series attempts to understand and perhaps reinterpret my work’s influences within the language and context of contemporary culture.

More and more, I find myself returning to the work of Edward Hopper for inspiration. Particularly Hopper’s figures – they often seem to evoke a certain emotion that I find myself putting forth in my own images. I have long been interested in the ways that stasis, stagnation, and isolation play out in contemporary culture.

In my work, I’ve often juxtaposed different elements of the American experience (nature and industry, for example) in a state of stalemated standoff, neither “side” winning out over the other. Instead of active struggle, this combination portrays the exact opposite; a sort of blunted, isolated existence. Hopper’s figures act in a similar manner. Even when two of his people occupy the same physical space, they never do mentally; they are never looking at each other, or at the viewer. I find this theme of solitude, even in the company of others fascinating.