My understanding of how to interpret an idea through painting started by simplifying down to the difference between light and dark. This stemmed from my background of photography and the fascination of an act that captures light. One project led me to photograph inside the walls of a correctional institution. Given many limitations I was forced to deal with composition in a new way: observing light more than anything else. I became entranced by the way light, colors, and shapes all played together with their opposite shadows, blacks, and voids. There was something really powerful about capturing light as it was. It became one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. For me, painting is an extension of that fascination. This series explores my first attempts in interpreting light on canvas.

The difference between light and dark creates volume, texture, void, space, and weight. I’m drawn to these images because I feel I can get lost in them. In the weight of a wrinkle, the tiredness of the eyes, the wind­whistled hair. We are constantly making and telling stories of things we see, hear, touch, feel and there is always something more to engage in. There is always more to learn about light, life, and people; stories we do or do not know and the collision of all those together. Each of these portraits are telling that story.