During the past four years, have been exploring ideas of community, loss and grief. My work deals with the eye of the viewer, its scale is intentional. I take up a space and envelop it, the goal being to surround my viewer in imagery to use its scale and transparency as a lens. I use mediums with a long shelf life of working and reworking, and create from mental landscapes. I use dark and vibrant color, as well as light and transparency. I deal with themes of community. I pay tribute to the community I’ve lost and the memory it holds. My intent is to deal with the complicated feeling of moving forward from people and places you cannot leave behind. My work is testimony to the scripture I read, the people who brought me up, nurtured me, and baptized me, that I ultimately left behind. It bears the weight as well as the intensity of my anger, and love for what I grew up in, and who it molded me into, and to strive to connect to that emotion in others. In my paintings, I attempt to answer the following questions; When we lose our community, where do we go? How do we honor the communities that raised us, while letting go of their ideals and expectations? When we let go of what made us, what ties us down, and how do we grow beyond it? When we reject what made us, how do we grieve it?