I leave everything to time and look for what it presents that is surprising or somehow resonates. As such it is usually rare if I finish a project in less than several months. Throughout the process I follow experimentation and intuition without concern of straying from any plans, much less themes. I find the idea of themes to be as useful as the idea of genres: limiting containers that serve a linear purpose with surface-level thinking.
I became interested in filmmaking when I was 15. At the beginning (and still today), my main interests in my artistic pursuits have been atmosphere, landscapes and intangibility. It's been a life-long attempt of mine to figure out if I can represent the intangibility of atmospheres in an art form. Since the start I have always been intrigued with the ways in which music and images in motion have the ability to alter one another limitlessly. Before too long I was collaborating with musicians in making abstract videos that I thought merged with their music. As I have gone back and forth, between the use of film and video, it has almost always been important to me to give the blank surface of digital video a unique texture. I started implementing footage of paintings I did on glass over a lightbox, in looking for new things to try. I moved on to experimenting with different cooking ingredients and household substances on the illuminated glass paintings. Gradually, I was editing more with footage on the glass than with footage of anything outside of my room or in the real world. Eventually I started working on abstract acrylic paintings on canvas and wood panels, (which were works of their own and not necessarily for any cinematic purpose). After a couple years of this work and study I decided to do a series of impressionistic oil paintings of Tennessee landscapes. (To date 4 out of 8 paintings in the series have been completed). In 2017 I began a new painting series of abstract exoplanet landscapes. For me art is a lot like the paradox of dreams to reality. It would be futile to try to explain, with words or anything tangible, the essence of a dream I had. The essence doesn't penetrate into the universe and most certainly cannot be shared via reality-based symbols known as language. The same is true with art. Once I try to create, I am already dependent on my consciousness on this world to work with materials that I hope will transmit something that does not materialize. In this reality the only way to express is with matter and or references limited to this universe. You have to play by this science in order to understand how to expand the scope of these assets. This is the paradox because I will not get very far without some of the Earth currency known as academics. However, if I put much stake in that currency I will only be building a bridge to where I already am, which would render the bridge pointless. |