These paintings of animals are self-portraits. They expose obsessive ruminations on identity, memory and desire.

The creatures stare out from shallow fields of intense color. Fragmented images from magazines and comics both comfort and taunt them. A solitary childhood was spent creating sticker and scrapbook albums -- designing and composing stories on the pages. Pop culture, with its diversions and bright, cheerful colors, was a welcome escape from an ever-changing home life.

I paint from photographs to reinforce the feeling of detachment. Images are added and subtracted, reconsidered and painted back. A new mark can point the canvas in an entirely different direction. With it's constant reworking, a painting can take years to complete. The result is dense and layered, with secrets and narratives that lurk beneath the outer façade.

For inspiration, I look towards Francis Bacon, whose work balances austere graphics with raw, emotional imagery. I also revel in the hyper-referencing, playful sampling of the Beastie Boys.

When the disparate images have been reconciled, I have created a world that is simultaneously buoyant and brutal. The subjects, colors and textures combine to reveal an agitated, dreamlike state. The mystery has been deepened, yet it is the journey, as well as the conclusion, that has been embraced.