About the Paintings
My current paintings are epic "portraits" of the small action figures that
I played with as a boy. I remember these figures as being magnificent.
They represented power, beauty, good and evil, and they captured every
aspect of my imagination. As a young adult, these toys are wonderfully
nostalgic, but they're no longer amazing to me. I want to depict the
toys as fantastically as they had been in my younger self's imagination.
The ineffability of what can turn a cheap yet coveted piece of plastic
into an almost talismanic object was the original inspiration for this
work. I am also motivated by the amorphous line that is drawn between
imagination and reality, childhood wonder and adult practicality. Though
sheltered and naive, there was a freedom in my childhood. It was free
from the politics of race and religion. It was free from the burdens of
history. It was free from rhetoric and paranoia, bitterness and regret,
cynicism and despair. There is nothing profound about commenting on the
minor tragedy of losing one's innocence, or the struggle to maintain one's
idealism. I just want to renew my faded sense of awe.
About the Drawings
The drawings are created without looking at the paper in order to
achieve a simple, naive, and child-like sensibility. Without removing
my gaze from the object, these pieces merely represent the intimacy of
the drawing process, and the devotion to these once beloved objects.
Each subject from the drawing series will eventually be used as a subject
for a larger painting.
