My latest work consists of multiple series of photographs and paintings that I employ to create “portraits” of a place. I typically focus upon places that are immediate to my lived experience. Iusualy begin by shooting a series of photographs over the course of several months—or in the case of “Buzludja”, several hours—through which I have attempt to establish a visual relationship with my subject, and this relationship later determines the technical manner in which I am to present this subject.

    My painting process itself combines geometric abstraction with representational painting. I begin my paintings with a geometric abstraction under layer, which acts as a formal or a symbolic response to the source photograph that will later determine the representational appearance of the painting’s surface layer. Once I have painted the representational image, I then scrape off this layer of paint in order to partially reveal the abstraction layer underneath. Through this process, I am trying to emphasize both the representational qualities of the geometric shapes, whose appearance are determined in response to the initial photograph, as well as the material and formal aspects of the representational image that also results from the same photographic source.