I see my work as history painting, promoting the obscure, the forgotten, and the common knowledge. My life has been full of tribulations which I look at as initiations. For every hardship I have endured, my art has grown with me. My father went to prison for murder when I was eight years old. Although losing my dad was rough, he left me a book on military history and one on art that started my infatuation with both and served as a means of connection with my pops and provided material for a deeper connection with my mom. Similarly, art was a bastion of light after I returned from Iraq, helping me deal with my guilt about the war.

This work comes from my personal experience, but is not entirely personal. I tell stories that reflect my story but are in dialogue with the wider world, where myth gives voice to the underbelly, the lumpen in tandem displaying the familiar and grandiose. My work tethers together seemingly opposing ideas as I connect the personal, the historical and the political. I am painting on a shaky historical line cemented in humility and conviction. I occupy my pictures with characters who serve as archetypes in conjunction with memory and self-exploration in order to reflect on the absurdity, malleability, and monumentality of history.