I’m interested in the way a city can preserve a moment. Places change, people move through them, and ordinary scenes eventually become records of a particular time. My work focuses on Vancouver and New York, two cities that have been deeply important to me and that offered very different rhythms, architecture, light and ways of experiencing urban life.
My paintings explore the relationship between people and their surroundings. Most works place a single figure at the heart of the scene, gazing at, moving through or simply spending a moment within the environment. That human presence gives the location an emotional center and transforms the cityscape from a depiction of place into a lived experience.
My aim is to capture an ideal scene and transport the viewer into it, creating an opportunity for escapism. I am also interested in glamour, in Virginia Postrel’s sense of the word: the ability of an image to create projection and yearning, allowing the viewer to imagine themselves within another place, moment or life.
I am drawn to Gustave Caillebotte’s depictions of people within the modern city and to Edward Hopper’s ability to use light, architecture and the human figure to give an ordinary location emotional weight. Hopper often places a person at the heart of a scene, allowing the surrounding environment to take on a distinct emotional atmosphere. In my own work, I am similarly interested in how a single figure can give a location presence, memory and emotion.
Photography is an important part of my process. I visit each depicted location and take images from different perspectives, looking for the moment when the composition and atmosphere feel right. From these photographs, I select a frame and adjust its tone until it reflects what I remember feeling in that place. Translating the photograph into oil allows me to alter reality rather than simply reproduce it, emphasizing light, colour, composition and mood in ways the original image cannot.
While my paintings may approach photorealism at first glance, they retain a deliberate looseness. Up close, the individual brushstrokes remain visible, and the image clearly reveals itself as a painting rather than a photographic print. That tension between photographic observation and the physical surface of oil paint is central to the work.
At its core, the work is about holding onto a place, a feeling and a particular moment before it disappears.