There is a place, 2016

The work assembled here speaks of my commitment to the vivid tangle of reality as I contemplate the city of Los Angeles in this long-term project. Instead of using one totalizing formal gesture for a city too big to choose one, the work brings together realistic and ethereal imagery, multiple exposures and combinations of the figurative and the abstract. Inevitably, there is a discomfort in the discord I see and portray, but still I seek for the images to have a subtle connection through color, shapes or compositional elements. Together they make up the multitude of parallel experiences I encounter and underscore their coexistence. A city with few hierarchies, full of chance encounters, the romanticism of the open road mixed with endless commuter gridlock, unbearable anonymity and individual freedom is a city one gets lost in, moves but never in a straight line. This is a city that has space for the imaginative. With its web of open-ended stories full of strange turns, twists, and jumps, like the noise of a city that never seizes in its erratic flow, this work invites the possibility of connection within difference. I blend light, color, and layered compositions to reflect the complex and fragmented urban experience, drawing inspiration from Southern California’s Light and Space movement. The work moves between loneliness and connection within LA's neighborhoods, reflecting the city's dissonant and shifting character.