Using traditional realist oil painting techniques (indirect painting), I work closely with a microscope to extract hidden visual dimensions found within a variety of biological organisms. Indirect painting allows me to build the paint in several layers, creating a luminescence not otherwise achievable through direct painting. In my skin series (Epidermigrams/Paresthesia), these work like the layers of the epidermis. In my resin series, they allow for more nuanced modulation of structure, light and dark. I find that indirect painting also prolongs the meditative state of painting and concentration, which is fundamental in understanding the hyper detailed imagery I work with. Each transition in colour is sacrosanct, and I find the way these nuances elicit sensorial arousal extremely compelling. I see capturing the fragility of these organisms as a way of reasserting the human bond with nature, at a time when our very survival depends on it. 

Interplay of scale is essential. I create large canvases to paint on, allowing space for a thorough visual examination of these microscopic worlds. These, in being transformed into the macro, assume a sense of galactic infinity and abstraction. Thus, the use of photomicrography in my work is key. It allows access to all the details I would otherwise not be able to extricate with the naked eye. In applying realist techniques to create large abstractions, I seek to bridge the gap between the pictorial illusionism of the Old Masters and the abstraction found in colour field painters of the 20th century and beyond. 

Additionally, I enjoy the binding threads between art and science. Photomicrographic images are for so many scientists a beginning point to scientific inquiry. Do they feel the same compelling awe when discovering these worlds? Is that what inspires their curiosity? I like the idea that using the tools of science to make art is a dismantling of (scientific) function. In using photomicrography to create art as opposed to science, we preserve and exalt the visual mystery.  From the Chauvet caves in France to the renderings of Audubon, recording nature and natural history has long been an intrinsic human proclivity. In posterity, these recordings have become sources of great wonder and awe. I see my paintings as an extension of this proclivity and the human search for the sublime within nature.