Life writes many stories upon us, stories that make us who we are. I was a shy and awkward boy who took interest and comfort in the fictional glories of favorite super heroes within comic books and animated television. At the time, I believe the attraction was consciously toward an emphasis on color, simplistic shapes and fantastical sequencing of both action and suspense. However, now in hindsight I believe there was an unconscious response to the super hero as a model of the ideal…a being of thoroughly flawless characteristics physically, emotionally, intellectually and morally. My boyish aspirations of developing into an equally perfect being dissolved gradually year by year as maturity and experience revealed the fact that being human is actually quite the opposite of what I had once believed. I can’t say that I take pleasure in my inadequacies, but I do acknowledge a certain significance within it. Comic book storylines have always been structured around the presence of conflict, portrayed traditionally between physical engagement between the hero and his or her nemesis. Although this aspect of comic books holds current contemporary relevance politically and socially, I find the concept of struggle to be of great fascination regarding an individual’s perspective of the self.

I am thematically drawn to issues regarding the human response to personal conflict. The content of my work reflects upon the presence of tragedy within the human experience in narratives fictitiously rendered from both personal experiences and those observed of others to explore my attraction to the ironic beauty within struggle, aggression, humility and failure…factors that contribute greatly towards how we shape and define the understanding we hold about ourselves.