Interview by Jimon

1) Where do you currently reside and work?
Right now I’m living in downtown Los Angeles, and I have a studio a couple of blocks from my apartment. I also still have my studio in New York.

2) How long have you been making art, and what led you to start?
My dad is an artist, so at a very early age I was exposed to a way of thinking and conversing about art that left me incapable of doing anything else.

3) How did you acquire your style?
To me, style is a dirty word. Whenever I begin to get too comfortable with one way of working, I become suspicious of the result.

4) Do you remember the first piece of art you created? How old were you?
I remember the first digital drawing I ever made. I was in kindergarten, and it was probably the first time I’d ever used a computer. It was a drawing of some frogs jumping over flowers. It’s really a nice drawing; I still have a print somewhere.

5) What school did you attend, and how did it affect you?
My time at Kunstakademie Dusseldorf really opened up my ability to have a conversation with the painting while making it — allowing ideas not only to flow but also to change if the argument is convincing enough.

6) What influences you as an artist?
I’ve always used the people closest to me as subject matter. Those relationships really fuel the work.

7) How do you choose the colors in your paintings?
I make preliminary drawings on my iPad before I start a painting, which allows me to move through a number of possible colors without the physical limitations of oil paint. It’s the same trial and error I would move through with paint but without the muddying and expense.

8) How do you decide when a painting is done?
There is typically a moment where I step away from the work, sit down and think to myself, “This is either the best thing I’ve ever done, or it’s complete shit.” I wait until I come in the next day with fresh eyes to decide which one it is.

9) What kinds of art hang on the walls of your home?
I have a painting by Elizabeth Glassner, a little Brendan Smith, a Paul Wackers and a couple of other small pieces.

10) How do you think art influences the world we live in?
In art, it is OK to be human, to be soft and imperfect. In art, there is no hiding. Art creeps under the door and finds its way into all of the other aspects of life that try to hide these truths, and restores humanity.

11) Three things you can’t live without in your studio?
Coffee, toothbrush, Rihanna.

12) Best advice you ever received in regards to your career as an artist?
“Have good ideas, because you’ll never be God, Buddha or de Kooning.” – Tal R.

13) If you could have dinner with three artists living/dead, who would be at your table?
Dinner with three artists sounds like a nightmare; how about coffee with Nicole Eisenman.

14) What forthcoming projects and/or exhibitions do you have scheduled?
Come find me in January.