From Photography to Painting
For a long time, I saw the world through a camera.
Photography gave me a front-row seat to a life I could have never imagined. I spent years documenting musicians, artists, audiences, and creative communities across the United States and abroad. Some days were spent backstage. Others were spent on the side of a stage, in a recording studio, on a tour bus, or somewhere in between. It was a life built around movement, curiosity, and being present when something meaningful happened.
Looking back, I realize photography taught me far more than how to make pictures.
It taught me how to pay attention.
The camera became an excuse to enter worlds I was genuinely curious about. Over time, I became less interested in documenting events and more interested in observing the energy surrounding them. The moments between moments. The atmosphere of a room. The personality of a place. The way people connect through creativity, music, and shared experiences.
Those years continue to shape everything I do as an artist.
When people ask why I moved from photography to painting, the answer is actually quite simple. I didn't leave one behind in search of the other. Painting became a continuation of the same curiosity that drove my photography for decades.
The difference is that photography captures a moment.
Painting allows me to explore what remains after the moment is gone.
Many of the experiences that influenced me most could never be fully contained within a photograph. A conversation after a show. A city at two in the morning. The feeling of standing beside a stage as thousands of people respond to a song. The miles traveled between destinations. The friendships built over years of shared experiences. Those things stayed with me long after the shutter closed.
Painting gave me a way to work with those ideas.
I don't approach a canvas with a fixed image in mind. In many ways, the process feels similar to the way I worked as a photographer. I begin by observing, responding, and staying open to discovery. Layers are added, removed, covered, and rediscovered. The painting gradually reveals itself through the process.
Some paintings come together quickly.
Most don't.
Many spend months in the studio. Entire sections disappear beneath new layers only to reappear later when I least expect it. The process feels less like constructing an image and more like uncovering something that was already there waiting to be found.
The materials I use reflect that approach. Acrylic paint, spray paint, oil stick, pencil, ink, and mixed media elements all become part of the conversation. I enjoy allowing different materials to interact, overlap, and create unexpected relationships across the surface. The history of the painting remains visible. I want the work to feel lived in rather than polished beyond recognition.
Music continues to influence the work in ways that are difficult to separate from who I am.
After spending so many years immersed in music culture, rhythm naturally finds its way into the paintings. Not as lyrics or imagery, but as movement, tension, repetition, improvisation, and energy. Some paintings feel loud. Others feel quiet. Some feel like a conversation. Others feel like a long drive through West Texas with no destination in mind.
The common thread is experience.
My paintings are not about documenting specific places, people, or events. They're about the traces those experiences leave behind. Memory is imperfect. It shifts over time. Certain details become sharper while others fade away. What remains is often more interesting than what originally happened.
That's where the paintings live.
Today, I still consider myself an observer. The medium has changed, but the curiosity hasn't. I'm still interested in culture, music, travel, people, and the environments we move through every day. I'm still collecting fragments of experiences and trying to understand why certain moments stay with us long after they've passed.
Photography taught me how to look.
Painting gave me a way to explore what I found.
