My art is a collection of visual statements derived from social interactions, media influences, daily rituals and memories. In particular, I enjoy exploring social and political paradigms through implied narratives. I question and parody the circumstance behind each statement using indeterminate yet seemingly familiar characters that are perpetually in a state of birth, coexistence and destruction.

I currently split my time between India and Chicago. This current cultural shift allows me to see the similar and different ways women use adornment as self-expression. This body of work entitled "Hair Pieces" comes from two sources. The memory of growing up in the 70's and watching my mother pile on her hairpieces, creating a fountain of forms and shapes on her head. My three-year-old daughter experimenting with female adornment the same way.

My current work is a response to the visual proliferation of military imagery in contemporary U.S. culture. Overwhelmed by media images and accounts of both the horrors of war and its myriad justifications, I became interested in investigating the often-contradictory responses of fear, apprehension, complicity, and misgiving that these circumstances can evoke. As someone who has never witnessed combat firsthand, my conception of warfare in general has been and continues to be shaped by media images, which seem to materialize out of thin air with a disturbing regularity and anonymity.

My paintings have always been about people. First it was the children of the central city of Milwaukee, then two dairy farmers from south-central Wisconsin, and now -inspired by my son, Sam- I have began a series of paintings about people with disabilities. The unsung and under-valued people of society are the subjects of my paintings.

A sense of place is important to me. It has also been illusive in my own life as I feel I live my life as a transient. In my paintings and photographs I look to recover that lost sense of place through records in paint and silver. Outside I observe the light as I walk over and through a landscape feeling the rise and fall of the land and the lateral bowing and bending of contours. Inside I struggle to make that refined dirt, paint, represent what I have seen. Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a month in the Badlands of South Dakota.

I set out to create small drawings of the moment where bodies of water touch bodies of land.

Reflecting upon how these two structures created a quiet symmetry intrigued me.

These spaces suggest that there is an intricate equilibrium formed the instant these bodies touch.

Through the use of traditional and alternative method printmaking I try to explore open-narrative, non-focal, visual experiences. Color and pattern mix with texture to allow the eye a cornucopia of information and experience. The overall mood is not only created by texture and color, but the sequence and repetition of these colors and textures. I do not want my work to make statements; instead it should highlight these juxtapositions of surface and color to allow the viewer to create their own visual narrative experience.

My work consists of painting from photos my brother Ryan took during his deployment to Iraq as a US Marine. Even his most benign images reveal the undercurrents of living with death. My image titled Mosul Iraq, 12.21.04, was inspired from a newspaper photo and started off this series, during the time Ryan was stationed nearby. The ephemeral light seen in the exploded tent where 18 Marines were killed, initially belies the destruction set off by a bomb. Like a Rorschach, I painted this image twice, reflecting out from itself.

These large drawings began as small sketches in my notebook based on black and white newspaper photos of manmade architecture in a state of flux due to wars, natural disasters, and poverty. I was interested in how these more complicated structures could make for a richer perception of space in my work. I limited myself to the simplest of materials, charcoal, paper and a kneaded eraser.

Over the past several years, my weekdays have coursed through some habitual rituals: I wake up when I'm not tired anymore, commune with my wife, and let my dog outside. I then check out the news on the Internet, stretch, shower, get dressed, and head straight for the kitchen. I prepare my usual breakfast-two pieces of toast, brushed with olive oil, drizzled with honey and a light spread of blackberry jam (seedless). With this, I have two of Matt's brand peanut butter cookies and high-mountain tea from Taiwan.