I am a figurative artist. I chose figuration because of an absence I kept noticing — people missing from the narrative, from the conversation. I make images that have something to say.

I work large, in oil, acrylic, spray paint and mixed media on canvas, metal, paper and drop cloth, at scales up to nine by twelve feet, so the viewer meets the figure life-size or larger. Each work starts in representation: a body, a gesture, a look. Then I push it with color, texture and mark toward abstraction, so the feeling carries as much as the likeness. Expressionism is my language; the human figure is my subject. Some pieces are painted front and back and have to be walked around.

The work holds people at charged moments — protection, struggle, tenderness, refusal. I am after the psychology underneath: what it costs to be seen, and what it costs to be moved. My figures make eye contact. They ask for conversation, not consumption.

Painting is spiritual work, and a collaboration — between me and my subject, and between the canvas and whoever stands in front of it. I paint to confirm presence. We are here, complex and whole.