Artist & Scientist
While attending Massachusetts College of Art and Design I became an abstract painter absorbed in the language of straight-up color, composition, and surface. To this day I am amazed that such considerations do need not to be tethered to anything else to make a complete, awesome painting; however I increasingly felt pigeonholed by being a “pure” abstract painter. This propelled me to search out subject-matter fitting for my love of abstract painting.
My first conscious source of inspiration was science. There is a long line of abstract artists influenced by scientific ideas and imagery -- Hilma af Klint to Sarah Sze. I believe this strong connection has to do with the expansive imaginative space provided by worlds unseen to the naked eye, exactly why I first turned to it (and because scientific visualizations tend to look abstract). Microscopic images became important to my painting when I decided I most wanted to work on the line of where life itself becomes definable. In keeping, I painted simple organisms.
I got more into the science than expected. I first notched up my scientific interest with popsci literature until I found I needed to go further to satisfy my curiosity. I am after an in depth understanding of the molecular world and to be in on the cutting edge of scientific discovery. Fortunately, I have been able to get closer to my scientific goals through completeing a thesis in Neuroscience (Brandeis University) and now at a start-up Biotech.