Connect What is your favorite type of art to create?

I am always caught between two worlds: what I experience in reality, and what I see in the fantasy of my mind. My goal has always been to carry on the tradition of Impressionism and one day roam the earth like a human-spirit-painting camera — but at the same time, I am always drawn back to the inner visions that keep appearing in my mind’s eye, like dreams, analogies, and fairy tales, to reveal wider truths. I want to make paintings that dig so deeply, they may be mistaken for memories.

Where do you find inspiration?

I try to think of my eyeballs and my heart as two interconnected parts of a metal detector, and my job is to keep my finger on the pulse for when the deep beep-beep-beeping occurs. That’s all to say, anything that sets me off during the visual stream of my day to day life: one specific tree in a vast field during sunset, the back of an old head with gently peaking gray roots in front of a bright TV screen, a man in a suit who feels more like a monster. The discovery of new paintings never ends.

What would you do with $25,000?

To be honest, I would use the money to set up my life as a painter in the most sustainable long term way possible. I would like to finally have my own studio space to paint in order to find more balance in my home. I would also love the finish the second half of my series “The Neo-Renaissance”. Ideally using all of the above to partner with a gallery to sell and live off the craft. I’ve moved around a lot in life, and like a tree on an endless trek, I’d like to plant roots finally.