About these paintings:
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In these paintings, plastic tells the story. Acrylic paint, which is plastic in both spirit and chemistry, is allowed to behave precisely as it pleases—oozing, glossing, pretending to be liquid when it’s really just the performance of liquidity. This is not a surface that cures; it clings to its in-betweenness. It appears melted, indulgent, and arrested in a state of oversaturation. One might say the work is a kind of portrait—of plastic as muse, medium, and memorial.

Nothing here is pretending to be noble. I’ve traded in canvas and linen for polyester: a taut, synthetic membrane that flatters the plastic surface like a tight dress on a party guest who’s overstayed. Acrylic on polyester—plastic painting on plastic support—is a kind of commitment. It’s not trying to be nature; it’s trying to be honest.

The surfaces are seductive, of course—garish, charming, ridiculous. Shrink-wrap, gum, glitter, toxic greens and magentas, the yellow of warning signs and artificial lemon. These are the colors of packaging and persuasion, of bright things that are meant to be touched but not trusted. They speak to desire, yes—but also to the kind of desire that ends up in landfill.

Each painting acts like it’s having a good time, which, like most things that seem fun, is also a little disturbing. The compositions emerge from digital collage and expressive spill, balancing on the line between image and excess, control and loss. They reference myths, pastoral calm, and the aesthetics of collapse: scenes disrupted by grief, violence, and absurdity. Think end-times, but with good lighting.

We like to believe, don’t we, that we can fix it. Recycle, reuse, eat less meat, shop local, be nice. But the logic of systems—the statistical certainty of the senseless masses—moves elsewhere. The paintings know this. They aren’t moral, but they are observant. They register our efforts to be good as faint traces beneath a surface that’s already sealed.

And so they don’t offer answers. They offer plastic—its ubiquity, its permanence, its dumb sheen. They suggest that in the aftermath—when the last forest is gone, when the final tweet is posted, when the final act of care is performed—what remains may well be this: a fossil record of gloss, sparkle, and waste. Frozen mid-spill. Eva Hesse once said, “Life doesn’t last; art doesn’t last. It doesn’t matter.” These paintings agree. But plastic—it lasts.