Artist's Note

     As a child, nothing got my imagination running faster than the breakneck insanity and baffling logic of cartoons. My greatest heroes throughout my life have been the artists who could convey adult themes and jokes in their work that have rendered it timeless, work that was intended for a two-foot tall audience whose primary occupation was eating sugar cereals.

     I incorporate these ideas of nostalgia and humor into my work, which manifests itself as cartoony illustrations, often with a darker edge. I also frequently incorporate texture into a piece; the ghostly drip of a watercolor can evoke a haunting visage, like a shadow from cartoons past, vaguely recalled by a more twisted and cynical adult mind.

    In addition, it’s highly important that I keep my subject matter fresh and diverse as possible. I don’t much condone getting stuck in a cycle of a few certain stylistic tendencies or certain characters, unless of course it’s necessary for a specific story. I think it’s vital to never stop pushing yourself and experimenting with your approach, regardless of how successful or profitable any given iteration of it might be. If you get locked in to such a specific work method, you run the risk of growing bored, which is first of all the greatest condemnation of anything you do with your spare time, and second of all completely stagnates your growth as an individual and as an artist. For this reason, it is also important to me that I keep other creative muscles unrelated to drawing strong; everything in the creative sector informs each other, and the deeper the well of influences you have in that regard, the better.

    In keeping with that philosophy, writing often plays a very important part in what I do. Whether it’s just forming word bubbles to fuel inspiration in my sketchbook or writing a comic book series from beginning to end, for me the written word and the visual arts have always been very much intrinsically related. There is little point in knowing or feeling if you lack the means to communicate, and I feel that writing can often add punctuation and punch to what a drawn image aims to express.

    I also aim to keep my dialogue and characters “real;” even in my current comic, Mirabelle the Architect, which takes place in a comedy sci-fi setting, it is important to keep the story grounded in reality. My characters are all based on people I know, even if some of them end up being amalgams rather than strict 1:1 copies. If I keep the base structure of my art rooted in the familiar and what makes me react emotionally, it thereby makes it more relatable and accessible to the outside viewer who might not even understand the subtler, “nerdier” references I frequently utilize.

    Overall I try to treat my art as I’d like to treat my life if I could; as a never-ending experiment where nothing is sacred, nothing is permanent and nothing should ever be taken too seriously.