2015

I had just spent the weekend with my friend Jake. My studio was in my house at the time, and after he left, I spontaneously started an underpainting that became a finished painting of Jake. He was always fighting depression and that energy is in the painting. I truly didn't realize or want to accept how bad his depression really was. I remember looking at the finished painting and thinking, wow, that's Jake, but he's not that bad, geez, certainly he's not as depressed as this man I just painted. My painting was showing me what I would not see, that he truly suffered. He died from despair over the summer of 2021. My wish is to see and accept people where they are as they are.