Q: So many of your works center community and intimate moments between individuals. Can you tell me more about how these themes play into your practice and inspire you?

A: A portrait can’t exist without a subject, so I’d have nothing to paint without others. I’d also be nothing without others. Reliance like that can feel terrifying and it’s a terror that’s crucial to my work. Here’s my axiom: We rely on other people knowing we must give them all we have, knowing it will cause us great pain. Lots of awful and beautiful things grow out of that—bliss, confusion, jealousy, longing, death, and, maybe most important to my work, the feeling that you’re connected to everything. 

When I paint, I am feeling that connection. There’s something so touching about watching a body disclose honesty; an expression or a movement that rattles you because it is so full of truth. As I paint others, I study those moments, all their private disclosures and confessions, and filter them through my own perspective. It’s a very intimate act. 

Q: I love the way bodies interact in your works. How do you create the compositions?

A: Some happen organically and some are staged or collaged. I like mimicking old paintings but prefer when something compositionally perfect happens naturally (like my painting Hold a Shadow Close, which is based on a candid photo my ex took). I like to play around, too. Last summer I “directed” my friends in a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We all got drunk, made costumes, and I used the stills from that night to paint Then They Held Cups and Prayed Every Good Thing. Whatever it is, I’m almost always looking for motion, because it reminds you how brief the scope of a painting (and moment) is. You can only ever paint a fading moment, so to love something is to mourn it at the same time.

Q: So many of your titles seem to capture this sense of both mirth and mourning that you describe. How do they come to you?

A: Titles are the most concise way to describe the work, though I’m sure mine sometimes seem a little fancy. I get most of my ideas from reading. Words have a rawness—an enormous, mystical quality. 

Q: Are there any specific works of literature that are particularly resonant?

A: I am a longtime fan of The Lord of the Rings, so when I was younger I read a lot of medieval literature—Chaucer, Marie de France, etc. So many books, poems, and songs have informed my art as an adult: Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guinn, and the poetry of David Berman, to name a few.

Q: There are a lot of artists that focus on the ease, erotics and harmony of community, but you seem to be interested in the real effort and associated discomforts it can take. Community building is hard work.

A: Yeah, totally. I can only contribute what is real to me, and what is real is that everything contradicts. You can feel like an outsider around the people who best understand you. Peace is a moving target. Loss is both devastating and enriching. Communities are rife with contradiction and they are the most valuable thing that we have.

The life of an artist is archetypally solitary, but I hate being alone. So I make an effort to involve people everywhere in my process. It’s popular to talk about community-centrism right now and I’m trying to figure out what that means. What I do know is that I owe so much to my friends, both artistically and as a person. Jared Azud (the dreamer), Andres Priest-Lopez (the taste-maker), Chloë Walker (the artist herself), and Cole Merrell (the writer) have each furthered my art significantly, along with so many others.