When I look at other people’s art it always strikes me how intelligent, mature, and sophisticated it is, whereas mine seems like something a little kid would do with crayons.

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My work is often likened to Rorschach tests where the audience finds what they will. I embrace the notion that any observer’s interpretation is as valid as any others, though I—like any audience member—see very specific things when I look at each image.

In this case, the explicit action I see being performed in this piece defines its meaning for me.

A man pouring a mug of coffee is a familiar solitary domestic activity, while waving invites another to share in such an act, imparting what I hope is an inclusive, friendly, tone.

The multiplicity of facial elements dominating the top half represents the simultaneity of multiple facets of identity—the different ways we see the world and the different ways the world sees us—or the various moods and emotions experienced throughout the day—each vying to define each new experience.

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This piece is dedicated to my grandmother and was made shortly after her passing.

Most of my pictures are portraits of no one in particular—in which case one might assume they are, in some way, self-portraits, considering the self-reflection of any artist’s creation. This, however, is the rare portrait that I see as being of a woman, though it is not meant to represent a specific woman nor women in general.

Her sly Mona Lisa smile winks at the audience as she rubs her tummy and pats her head—trying to do too many things at once, but, somehow, succeeding.

The title refers to the fleeting nature of dreams, even those that occur during waking hours, and how easily they can be forgotten as we are distracted by life.

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My art is entirely improvisational in nature. When I begin a piece, I have no endgame, no planned finished product, in mind, and instead, make it up as I go along.

This piece showed promise from an early stage, but did not take shape quickly or easily, and, thus, was named for the fact it had to be “beaten into submission.”

The profile to the left represents the objective observer—that higher part of ourselves that remains above the fray—while the contorted figure in the center of the image is that subjective part of each of us that we call our identity. The image, as a whole, shows a struggle for self-determination—asserting the right to define who you are rather than being defined by how others see you.

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This image—to me, if no one else—comments on the different hats we each wear—the ways in which what we do defines who we are—represented by the visual pun of a hat or two atop the figure’s head.

The figure is a man drinking a tumbler of whiskey—on the rocks—while smoking a glass pipe pressed to his lips. His lighter igniting the pipe juts from inside the tumbler—making little physical sense in the ways only abstraction can—with a second, wooden, pipe in his other hand. It recalls the altered states of mind, self-image, and public-image invoked by drugs and alcohol and the search for meaning that so often precipitates drug use.

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The title of this picture comes from the jelly-bean (or lima bean) shape of the primary face and puns on the name of tennis champ Billy Jean King—though no commentary on her should be inferred; it is just a meaningless spoonerism.

The image focuses on an embrace—a theme that appears more than once in my art. One figure wraps its arms around the other from behind, while the fore-figure likewise holds on, reciprocating the embrace. The multitude of eyes represent awareness that there is an impromptu audience for the hug, but the couple is unphased, content in their own little world, content with their embrace.

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Another embrace. In addition to a loved one, the embracer holds in his arms his hobbies, his possessions, and all those things he is thankful for. The embraced person is not the first, last, or only beloved; the many eyes that recede into the background behind hers hint at all the embracer’s other loves. She is, however, glad at this moment to count herself among the cherished within the protagonist’s embrace—valuing him as he values her, not as a possession but as person enriching his life.

In totality, it as a picture of gratitude—a “thank you” card to all the important people and things that enrich my life.

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As the genesis of these pictures, my interpretation may hold some weight or credibility that others’ might not, but what I see is not meant to supersede the unique experience each person has with my art. Much of the meaning I assign to each picture is done after the fact—one more reason why everyone can have their own interpretation that is just as valid as anyone else’s.

To me, this picture depicts an amphibious fish that’s sprouted hands, walking up onto the shore, wearing a top-hat, and all the tricks he has hidden thereunder. That’s sort of a joke, but only sort of.

The complicated nonsense that comprises the top-hat signifies all the things we carry around inside our minds that aggregate over the course of the day, or are carried over from day to day, and how these make up who we are and our unique perspective. The mention of a magician was intended to hint at the top-hat, which I feared might otherwise go unrecognized as visual gibberish.

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In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a big number “5” in the middle of this picture.

The name, in part, comes from the fact the face, to me, invokes the notion of a harlequin or Pagliacci, and calls to mind the relationship between being both a clown and a fool, yet still being just myself.

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This image is a depiction of a face that is more abstract than my more recent work, as if it had been cobbled together from loose ends. There is no body, no corporeal anchor, for the mind housed inside the head behind the face, and likewise the observer’s eye roams the image haphazardly, returning only to the eyes, nose, and mouth.

The many disembodied hands could represent both taking and giving—like the hands of the needy desperately pawing at someone whom, to them, represents hope—and the burden of wanting to help those whom need it, but not knowing where to start or doubting that whatever help you have to offer will be enough help. This is not as much about the poor or oppressed as it is about the day-to-day insecurities that depress, or negatively affect the self-esteem of, otherwise good people.

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This picture is a cross between an elephant and a man, an “elephant-man,” if you will, with big ears and a long nose. He seems to me to be the type to tilt at windmills, perhaps while riding a donkey, whose gaze is fixed on the observer and follows their movement.

Despite the identity described above, I likewise see this image as an entity escaping the two-dimensional world of the image—the figure being divided into stacked planes whose separating distances vary with his movement—becoming three-dimensional, becoming “real.” This is perhaps the idea that an artist “gives life” to his art.

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This collection of facial imagery—composing in aggregate a single visage—signifies the congruence of many different personalities within one being. We are each different depending on mood, or when we are around different people, at different times, or in different situations, but who we truly are remains as the constant container for each of these shifting aspects of self.

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This is a depiction of three faces side-by-side. Each person is a trinity rolled into one consciousness: the speaker, the listener, and the silent observer of both; id, ego, superego; the trinity of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; point, counterpoint, and compromise.

To me, this image depicts a conversation—spoken or silent, through words or merely with looks, explicit or implied—among three separate beings or a single person speaking amongst the three aspects of himself. In fact, some of my most edifying relationships are with myself.

The bright, near pastel, colors suggest a generally sunny outlook, free of emotional conflict or ennui—how I hope to conduct myself.

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I have always maintained that there should be a “letter three.” The number “three” is a quantity; the letter “three” is the symbol for the quantity. Hidden in this picture are the numbers three and six, depending on how you choose to view it.

This picture represents an early example of my return to a focus on recognizable depictions of faces over purer abstraction. The human face is the single most readily identifiable representational symbol that can retain that representational identity despite extensive simplification or abstraction. For that reason, it acts as an anchor, the place to which the eye most often returns, dictating how the eye moves over the image and inspiring the search for further representation in the rest of the image, within what might otherwise be seen as pure abstraction.

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There is a world inside everyone’s head. This is mine.

This image is a callback to a pair of caricatures done of me when I was much younger, where my huge head sat atop a tiny body, which I emulated in many drawings thereafter.

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Though they often possess a painterly quality, all my art is essentially digital collage featuring selective transparencies. If one were to attempt to recreate these images through an analogous physical process, it would—at a minimum—require photographic developing techniques, screen-printing, and airbrushing.

This picture was one of the first made using paintings, rather than photographs, as its ingredients.

Depicted herein is a face composed of other faces, named after the street lived on by Bernardo Soares—my favorite of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms—in The Book of Disquiet; though, to be honest, I don’t know what one has to do with the other—perhaps the notion of a multiplicity of identities.

When viewed as a mirror image, this picture is known as “Nude Dissenting a Staircase” for the sloping verticals descending from left to right.

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The name “The Begginning” is a portmanteau of “begging” and “beginning.”

This picture is from the same series as “A Douradores Street” and was a significant turning point in the evolution of my art. This was one of the first times I depicted a torso rather than merely a head or pure abstraction. In general, abstracted or non-literal bodies are difficult to construct because they do not possess the same symbolic universality as faces.

I see here a man with luggage, a traveler, with a mustache fading into the background, or, perhaps, engulfed by the crowd on a crowded train platform. It is another piece that brings to mind Pessoa, in part, perhaps, due to the superficial fact he had a mustache.

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Another from the “Douradores Street”/”The Begginning” series. Here are two distinct faces—one in the foreground, the other behind him to the right—and implied ephemeral faces or figures throughout. To me, the largest of the faces is wearing a telephone headset and a hat pulled low at a jaunty angle, and possesses a mouth likewise at an angle, a large nose, and two perfect circles for eyes.

There’s also a dog working as a mail carrier—what a wacky combination that is!—but he is one of the implied, and is thus harder to see for anyone but myself.

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This image was among the first wherein I began experimenting with more organic shapes and painterly textures—instead of the geometric shapes and solid colors of “The Begginning” and its ilk—as well as deemphasizing partial transparencies.

I’m not really sure what is being depicted here. There is the obvious pair of faces to the right and their folded arms, and a bird’s eye and beak at the bottom, but rather than being a portrait featuring abstraction, this is a largely abstract image that features a few representational forms—which suggest, or hint at, a representational context that is left up to the observer to determine.

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This picture immediately followed “Ignorant Memories” chronologically. The faces in this one still remind me of some of the people I knew at the time this image was made, though they were not initially intended to.

This picture is one which has grown disappointing with time. It is not uncommon for a picture to satisfy my aesthetics at first, but, with the passage of time—or perhaps my own maturation—fall ever shorter of my current standards. Likewise, the opposite sometimes occurs, wherein a picture I dismissed as a failure looks surprisingly appealing after a long hiatus, and I forget what it was about it that I first considered inadequate.

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Surprise, surprise, I see a face in this one, too.

This picture was originally named for Robert Rauschenberg and Jean Michel Basquiat, as the finished project reminded me, at the time, of a hypothetical combination of their respective styles. The name was changed, however, when I was counselled—by someone whom supposedly knows about such things—that the audience for fine art doesn’t want to be explicitly reminded that artists are inspired by other artists—to maintain the pleasing fiction that we all work from some unique and divine inspiration. I disagree with such a pretense but have kept the new name.

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Named for a song by the band Cake, this picture is a prime example of my use of selective transparencies. The placement of design elements is largely superimposition (on top of one another), as opposed to the typical use of juxtaposition in traditional collage.

This is one of several pictures depicting embraces but, in this case, is more intimate; the larger figure cradles the smaller facing him, looking upward at him, their faces pushed together in a kiss.

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Here, a man sits on a throne with a scepter in one hand, a chalice in the other. Wanting to observe others without being observed, he peeks from behind a hand shielding his eyes from the prying eyes of others.

This picture is largely visual gibberish; thus, the figure is, at best, implied. The only literal depictions are the many hands and eyes, the pair of feet, and the singular face, but their arrangement is (seemingly) largely random. Lacking large simple shapes to attract the eye as anchors, the gibberish, instead, distracts the eye from the locus of greatest attention—the face—thus, this is a restless image.

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A large-nosed man with his hands in the air, perhaps in a bit of shock. There is no deeper meaning here.

This picture, along with “All Hands on Deck” and “The Magician on Television” are the lesser among my favorite pictures. They each fall short in some indefinable way—be it in terms of composition, message, representation, or all three. They lack, to a degree, the sophistication of the pictures that I consider more successful attempts; however, they succeed just enough that I share them with other people, unlike the dozens of pictures I’ve made that do not meet that minimum threshold.

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This picture may be the epitome of “visual gibberish.” There is a surprising amount of symmetrical repetition of design elements that are just askew enough to not seem like mirror images.

To me, this is yet another face, though its features are mere hints. I also see a pair of identical figures, in the bottom half, dressed in white, facing away from each other, standing with their hands in their pockets as they levitate.

To be honest, I don’t remember where the title for this image came from, as I cannot presently identify a throne.

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This is another picture that invokes the image of an elephant or elephantine creature (that makes three, if you’re counting). Elephants possess some innate symbolism—be it some reference to the cliché of a long memory, or the compassion and protection elephants show for their young, their sense of community, or their usual passivity except in the face of a threat whereupon they become a formidable foe, or perhaps the perceived lack of discontent with their lot in life—that of a slow, thoughtful animal. There are worse archetypes to identify with.

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I am partial to “The Dreams of the Gangly.” It is less literal and rigid than some of my other work, but, to me, is still quite representational and rewards the search for hidden Rorschach-like elements.

Depicted here is a figure outstretching his arms, perhaps even pouncing, to embrace another (the one being embraced strikes me as a monocular Squidward wearing a blue beret being caught by surprise, but that’s open to debate). The embracer’s face is a muddled mixture of elements that suggest features—buck teeth, an ear where a mouth belongs, a couple of eyes set askew—rather than representing them in a realistic, accurate, or objective manner.

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