Painting, the process of painting, is a constant reevaluation of what I think I know, and the inexplicable results of what I just did. The kind of perception I'm after comes from disorientation, what I see out of the corner of my eye, rather than what I already know.  As Picasso noted: “What I capture in spite of myself interests me more than my own ideas.”

For this group of paintings titled Hard Data Soft Flesh, I use blood relatives as my subject matter, struck by the staggeringly improbable series of events that has led to right here, right now.  Each painting is an evolution of mark-making that begins with a conventional portrait study. This is a way for me to spend time with the person, and to really understand their physical landscape. Everything at this point must make sense so there is no mystery about any part of the painting. Everything must make sense except the unexpected, inexplicable result.

Eventually, after a lot of process and disorientation, the work describes someone who is profoundly unknowable as well as intimately familiar. Using devices such as trace lines, pours, and relationship notations, each figure records an inheritance.