Portfolio

Reverent Forms

  • Falling and Ascending, 2024 Oil on Canvas

  • Cone, 2024 Oil on Canvas

  • Cylinder, 2024 Oil on Canvas

  • Duality, 2024 Oil on Canvas

  • Monterrey, 2025 Oil on Canvas

  • Sunflower, 2025 Aquatint

  • Lost&Found, 2026 Oil on Canvas

Reverent Forms came about as an exercise in prayer and meditation.

I asked God what He wanted me to do, and I was guided back to the basics: Big Form Modeling.

An artist’s basic skills in rendering come from modeling the big forms: cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones.

As I was practicing, the idea struck with joy and humor, “What if I gave them faces?”

In choosing to focus on reverence, a state I found to be deeply true of my inherent nature, I got to cultivate the fruit of my labor into this ongoing series.

Birds

  • Full Stop

  • On Sight

  • Break Free

My series in birds came about drawing inspiration from photographer Glen Noyer’s birds. I immediately noticed the implicit movement, dynamism, and freedom even through still images.

Birds are free from thinking it would seem. They just do. They’re free from doubt; there is only figuring it out. I have never seen a bird look like it’s thinking, “no, it can’t be done.” Plenty of humans, but never birds.

It’s my endeavor to serve Love, Life, and Truth in this way.

Charcoal

  • The death of a son in August of 2011.

    Lamentations i 2025

  • The night of suicide attempt. A hand reached out from California to Chicago to try and stop the blade.

    Lamentations ii, 2025

  • Rebirth, David looks on. Sealed by the Holy Spirit.

    Lamentations iii, 2025

This Personal Visual Narrative from 2024 is the story of witnessing the death of a child in Sangin, Afghanistan, my second deployment in 2011.

Lamentations i: We held eye contact until his eyes clouded over after I had loaded his mother’s body (lifeless) into the back of a military vehicle.

Lamentations ii: The mother and child are witnessing what, to me, must feel like justice; the night of my suicide attempt in 2014. My closest friend, who I had called to say goodbye to that night, got the ambulance to show up to my bedroom door in Chicago from California.

Lamentations iii: October 5, 2024 I was baptized during a campus ministry (Chi Alpha) Fall Retreat. David, behind me, looks on in recognition. The Holy Spirit minsters to me as I sit in shock having risen out of the grave into new life.

Murals

  • The Pit Rib House

  • The Pit Rib House, side

  • One Piece Mural

Murals have been such a service-driven challenge. Working with people, and not in an isolated studio, has been acclimating me with becoming more of a community oriented artist. I confront my fear of disappointing, failing, being taken advantage of; my fear of the nightmare scenarios, and I have been rewarded with opportunities to stand firm where I need to and be open, patient, wait on God and trust.

Listed here are commercial jobs I have taken with wonderful people; as I get my feet wet, I will be moving into more personal projects that bring a modern take on Renaissance and Baroque-inspired murals.

Stick around!

Portraits

  • Portrait

    Hans of Deitmers

  • Matriarch

  • M. Michalek

Portraits are a deeply intimate endeavor. It’s an opportunity I take to connect with someone’s spirit through the Spirit.

From Alla Primas like in M. Michalek to the long slow process taught in ateliers like DARA in the Netherlands and Grand Central Atelier in NYC for Hans of Deitmers; portraits are a sublime, stressful, intimate practice. Great when you nail it, make ya wanna throw your brush when the likeness isn’t there.

Painting portraits has taught me that love is what you do despite the failures, the inconvenience, the uncertainties. Love is showing up anyway, honest and humble.