“Growing up in a hardcore Christian household, I encountered some trouble with coming to terms with my sexuality. I was so far gone in the church family that I even tried to convert my friend when he came out to me. However, deep down, I knew I was gay. I Knew I found men attractive but kept thinking “you're gonna burn in hell some day”, so I felt immense guilt for looking at a hot guy. Yet… that didn’t stop me from sitting in the front row during the youth pastor’s sermon. Turns out, I thought he was hot and I just didn’t know how to deal with it.
I would still question why I felt the way I did when I got all hot and bothered by my attraction to a gorgeous man. Was it because I was comparing myself to them? Or was I longing to make a connection on a romantic and physical level? I would have a longing curiosity that I now understand is totally normal. But with society, there is still an unspoken rule that you don’t blatantly stare at a hot guy changing in the gym locker room (unless you want to be viewed as a creeper). Then the line of being an admirer and voyeur becomes blurred.
With this new collection of paintings, I want explore how we LOOK. Not necessarily with our appearance but how we make eye contact (or avoid it as I have found most do). In each image, the subject has a mysterious directed gaze. Are they too longing to make a connection, checking them selves out in a mirror….. trying to hook up at a bathhouse? All these are forms of looking. And by we, the viewer, are a part of this process, becoming the voyeur gazing into their private lives. “
GAZE was on display at Moby Dick in San Francisco, CA as a solo art exhibit in 2016.
