The artists whom I admire most, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Philip Guston, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, all have played a significant role in my development as an artist. This euphoric feeling experienced throughout their work made painting essential to lives. This hunger for creation and desire for something better was part of their being.
I look up to these artists because they worked fearlessly; painting was their redemption against hardship. It was a way to rise above the life that was given to them. Throughout their various struggles, it acted as a reminder that there was still something beautiful left in this world. Something that provided them with such an intense, joyful feeling. This is what makes their work so powerful. By showing themselves in their work, they have given us something unforgettable. They have given us life.
As important as my influences are, I must be true to myself in my own work. Once I allow this to happen, to let go, the work just flows. Everything seems to slip away and there is a stillness inside my body. Painting has given me a sense of joy. It has allowed me to experience beauty in way that I cannot describe. The hardships that I have endured have only intensified this feeling. Painting is way of showing that through everything, a feeling of pure hope can still exist each day.
Philip Guston once said-When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting YOU walk out-
So, now, I am really painting, and everyone is in there with me. It is wonderful feeling and it is something that I never want to let go.
Painting is my happiness.
