I've always been absorbed by the human face - to the point of being bored by anything else. I work larger than life, totally losing myself in the intricate colors and subtle shadows that make up an expression. I tend to work in self portraiture because I find it easy to detach from my own face; instead of catching myself up in the task of capturing the essence of my subject, I can let go and explore the painting as its own image. In an odd way, I'm not entirely sure I know what I look like, and each painting is both an attempt to catch myself on canvas, and an effort to lose myself in paint.
My current series is an exploration of my family history, using myself as a model. I've been poring over photographs from close relatives taken before I was born, whole complex and flawed and fascinating people who I seem to have barely met. I am composing portraits of these past selves, imagining my grandmother in the 1960s, my grandfather before his strokes, my mother and her twin as teenagers. I use myself as the model, knowing that somewhere their histories are wrapped up in my own.
