Ars longa, vita brevis.

It isn't so much that I choose classical subjects for my paintings. Rather, they choose me, each presenting itself in answer to the problem of depicting a particular concept. My work is driven by the need to excise, rather than express. Each is a tumor: beautiful, beloved, and fatal if left inside me too long.

Through the juxtaposition of the grotesque and erotic, the senseless and sensual, the viewer is enticed to a dark world which, upon introspection, is but another shade of our own. Pleasure and aesthetics are foremost, but only insofar as they serve to capture the audience and leave them exposed to the bloody details depicted in each carefully-crafted painting: Prometheus, his liver devoured. Sisyphus, with bloodied hands and blistered feet. Oedipus, his cheeks smeared with gore.

There is beauty in this world, and there is violence. The two are not mutually exclusive.