My current series of paintings explores how people come to terms with circumstance.  

Being optimistic during unfortunate times can easily cross the line into escapism.  This can be seen as a cowardly way of dealing with things, but my view is that escape is a natural and necessary reaction to the world around us.  In many ways, our urge to create comes from a need to get out of our own reality and enter into another.  Creativity, whether it's form is visual, musical, or textual, can function as a relief from everyday anxiety. 

As an artist, I try to be part of that relieving force.  I use humor, a colorful palette, and a loose application of paint juxtaposed with cartoon characters that sometimes seem completely aloof to what is happening in the rest of the picture.  Their emotionless, and somewhat dumbfounded expressions are meant to reflect how we often feel when bombarded with the infinite choices we have to make day to day.  The viewers are forced to feel for them.  My style is much like children's book illustrations or comics.  I find this the most accessible way to form a narrative.  Recently I have been using a danse macabre approach to some of the paintings.  I am playing with the idea that having awareness of life's fragility and our own mortality only gives us more reason to make beauty and spread positivity.