Artist’s Statement

In my personal art, and in the work I choose to take on for clients, I like to create works with an otherworldly flair. My inspirations come from many places: mythology, childhood fears, the beauty of the natural world, and strange dreams. The other hallmark of my work is, even when not working in comics, I like to imply a narrative in all of my work. I want the characters, creatures, and places I create to feel as though they are poised at a fateful moment. I want to create works that take the viewer out of their skin into new lives and new worlds.

Because of the desire to create perfect escapism, I’ve been driven throughout my career to improve the breadth and clarity of my visual communication. My first job in arts was, fittingly, creating comics for use in a Japanese language class–comics that had to tell a story in visuals alone because the words would be written in a language new to the reader. In the years that followed, I’d draw hundreds of pages of comics for clients– always in another artist’s world and artistic “voice.” I was at the same time proud of my ability to adapt to others’ styles and ashamed that I didn’t have a clear voice of my own.

I was mistaken in that perception. Not only have some themes been a through-line in all of my work, whether personal or professional, but there are certain aspects of my style that come through even when I must imitate another’s to meet the project’s demands. These are an emphasis on naturalism in anatomy and pose, a yearning for specificity in mood and environment, and the use of body language to convey personality and relationships.

I bring my passion to constantly exceed my limits to hired as much as to personal work. Let’s make worlds together.