About & Artist Statement

My grandfather, artist Robert Yonke, who is my most influential role model, introduced me to art at a very young age. Since then, and with a significant proclivity to create and manipulate media, being an artist is the most significant part of who I am. The style that defines my work today was developed over his years of lessons and mentoring. He helped me discover my place and identity in the art world. Therefore, I have grown up doing this, and I have been conditioned to create art.

One of my fondest memories is the day I began to define the style of my paintings. While working next to my grandfather in his garage studio, I applied heavy layers of oil and acrylic paint while mixing the mediums on the canvas’s surface and following his color relation and design lessons. Once the piece was finished, we realized I was progressing towards a style of my own. The product was abstract and saturated, but the fashion of its production intrigued me more than any other work I had done prior.

From these early stages of creating art, working with colors and manipulating them developed me into the colorist I am today. There is now an inherent application of medium that follows me through the work I produce. The more work I create, the more connected I feel with the sensations that occurred when making art from my beginnings.

To that end, my conceptual interests surround people. My interests lie in how people are - how they act, feel, and interact with the environments they exist in. The visual, surrealist representation of these matters comprise my work. I do not have the desire to saturate my artwork with conceptual complexities that need to be verbally explained but rather to visually convey a relatable human existence that is already dynamic and complex as presented. Since I acknowledge these states of being as I create the work, an element of abstract expressionism is incorporated as well.

What is shown is a byproduct of a fascination with people, which recognizes character, narrative, emotion, expression, and aesthetics.