Portfolio
Sumi ink & watercolor '11-'16
My recent foray in sumi ink is an attempt to synthesize all of the different media and techniques I've developed thus far. Both the impressionists and eastern artists focused less on representing their subject matter and more on internalizing it's essential nature. Sumi ink was an epiphany for me when I first got into it back in 2010. Compact, simple, easily available, versatile, and expressive. I started out learning Chinese calligraphy, but when I joined the Hare Krishna ashram and started studying the Vedas, I adapted the technique to help me practice Sanskrit. Now I've found the perfect content for my work in the form of Vedanta philosophy, the perfect medium in sumi ink (which I'm combining lately with western watercolor,) and now I'm gradually developing a visual vocabulary so I can enter into a new phase where I hope to capture a vision of Transcendence as revealed through the eye of the soul. I want my work to harmonize the best of the east and the west to introduce a universal Theology for an international generation.
Drawings '05-'11
Since I was very young, drawing has been a kind of diary for me. It catalogs minutiae and crystallizes memory. I tend to work small, with compact, inexpensive media like ballpoint pens and sharpies, so that I have the freedom to capture intimate exchanges and spontaneous ideas.
It's important to me to include a kind of personal presence in my work, a narrative quality of 'being there' which cannot be truly captured when the artist is separated from the experience by space or time. For this reason I developed the habit of always carrying a sketchpad wherever I go. My philosophy is 'less is more, brevity is eloquence.' For me, it's not so much about capturing a likeness as it is a state of mind, an interaction.
Most of these pieces were executed deftly in 10 or 15 minutes. My style is impressionistic, using a combination of flowing lines and scribbly crosshatching. I vary the density of these lines to create varieties of tension or serenity. This approach has helped me overcome fear and self doubt and helped me practice a kind of gracefulness, to find a certain strength in flexibility.
It's important to me to include a kind of personal presence in my work, a narrative quality of 'being there' which cannot be truly captured when the artist is separated from the experience by space or time. For this reason I developed the habit of always carrying a sketchpad wherever I go. My philosophy is 'less is more, brevity is eloquence.' For me, it's not so much about capturing a likeness as it is a state of mind, an interaction.
Most of these pieces were executed deftly in 10 or 15 minutes. My style is impressionistic, using a combination of flowing lines and scribbly crosshatching. I vary the density of these lines to create varieties of tension or serenity. This approach has helped me overcome fear and self doubt and helped me practice a kind of gracefulness, to find a certain strength in flexibility.
Acrylic '05-'11
I started painting with acrylics sometime in high school, and I've found it to be a good fit for me because it has similar characteristics as drawing. Because my work focuses on the experiential, it is important that my materials are portable, so I can sit down and paint on the spot, and by the time I'm done cleaning up my painting is dry and I can pack up and go. Practically all these works were done en plein aire in a single sitting.
Transience is an overarching theme in my work. I think this is why in the past I've always had been poor at archiving and keeping records. Most of my artwork has been scattered across different galleries and residences as I traveled across the USA. My philosophy was that the real value of my art was not in a physical product, but by how well it helped me become conscious of my own mortality, and the consciousness itself which survives it. Constantly there is a dichotomy between subject and object, body and soul. In older work these relationships were strained, even violent, but the progress I've made is to be able to reconcile and harmonize these dualities in nature, in myself.
Transience is an overarching theme in my work. I think this is why in the past I've always had been poor at archiving and keeping records. Most of my artwork has been scattered across different galleries and residences as I traveled across the USA. My philosophy was that the real value of my art was not in a physical product, but by how well it helped me become conscious of my own mortality, and the consciousness itself which survives it. Constantly there is a dichotomy between subject and object, body and soul. In older work these relationships were strained, even violent, but the progress I've made is to be able to reconcile and harmonize these dualities in nature, in myself.
Oils '05-'08
I did a brief stint with oil for some time, and although I loved the color, the texture, the brightness and sensuality and smoothness of it, ultimately I didn't have the patience to get into it for very long. Nonetheless these oil paintings illustrate some of the most volatile periods of my life. Most of these were executed during the time I was undergoing psychotherapy after a drug overdose back in 2006. After an attempted suicide I was grasping for identity, for belonging. I was struggling with a sense of brokenness, void and disenfranchisement in the bowels of suburbia. I was struggling to make amends with a world I felt forced into, that had no use for me.
