le monde est le tien: Self-Portraits

Art-ist State-ment

I cannot be quieted. I am constantly questioning and searching—attempting, however fruitlessly to quell the insatiable need to learn, to find answers, create solutions and thus, eventually, search for new problems. My drawings are observations of internal debates raging within myself, and how I truly relate to the outside world. I am searching to understand both the physical but also the metaphysical difference between brain and blood and heart and lung—where do these things exist in relation to the outer persona, and to others. I am interested by the complexity of the human psyche—the beautiful waste of life due to psychological trauma, disease, or deficiency. The mixture of memory, history, health, deterioration—it is all my fascination.

Through large-scale charcoal drawings, mixed media, film photography, and free verse, I record observations. Whatever realities I am looking for need not be limited by my own experience: in fact, experiences of others prove often to be more relevant than my own. I sense nostalgia for events, people, things, I have never—or rather, have yet, to come into contact with. It is impossible for me to live according to date and time. Most succinctly put—and to quote the late Richard Avedon—“ ‘…I haven’t lived chronologically. No one does’ “.