Artist Statement
Generalization is about treating a variety of different things as a whole. But to universalize is to work outward; you start with something specific and private - and you begin to search for something that qualifies it into the realm of some larger picture.

The paintings are based on original and appropriated images where details are reinterpreted, by either reduction or exaggeration. Its cultural and contextual specificity is reprocessed, to see if I can arrive at the notion of something universal inside it. The possibility of completely alienating the viewer through this process keeps it from being about strictly finding and communicating commonality. Empathy is just as easily rejected as invoked.

I want to invite the viewer to engage in a kind of search within the paintings to see if one can find themselves relating to a piece in a nostalgic way, as if they may have encountered it before, perhaps in a trivial, or forgotten moment in time. It is about examining the distance between the common and familiar - versus the personal and specific - focusing on the point where the creator and viewer either come together or separate.