Where did the Imaginarium Collection come from?

This collection was created after a dry season in my life. I had gone to school to be an artist and was beginning my career. I had worked as a gallery director and housing manager for an artist residency, then after going almost completely broke, I moved house to try to find gallery representation in Chicago—without success.

I switched to becoming a digital designer for a small t-shirt start-up as their lead designer, until business restructuring made my job unnecessary. Then, I tried starting my own t-shirt design business, selling my art at craft fairs and festivals, but all to no avail.

Every creative pursuit I’d gone after would gain a small amount of momentum before eventually stalling out.

I was still living with my parents in my mid-twenties and wanted to start my life already. I felt terrible, like a parasite mooching off my parents, so I decided to take a break from my art and just get any job I could, so I got a job in construction. My soul sank even lower.

Amidst the stress and exhaustion from working rough carpentry during the day, I would use the little bit of energy I had left to work on my art here and there. After contemplating the rejection from the Chicago galleries, I decided I needed a new direction in my art. 

Instead of making art that was more personal and spiritual to me and my own journey, I decided I needed something that was more outward—a style that would connect to the similarities that exist within all of us.

I began to paint differently. Instead of forcing narratives into artworks, I would work more meditatively and let the pieces evolve on their own, changing and expanding as I created them.

Through letting go of the message I had tried to force into my artwork, I found my new purpose: to paint a universal message of the human experience, and of my own experience, that could speak to anyone. 

The joys and frustrations, the ups and downs of life, the deep feelings of the heart, the beauty, the turmoil, the manic, the frustrated, the obsessive, the adventurous and the imaginative. I began to paint abstractly which had never really interested me before, and this new act of creating became my new way to relax, unwind—and to worship.

The pieces in the Imaginarium Collection, along with the rest of my art, come from a desire to dissolve my mental constraints in order to explore the imagination, create new worlds, dimensions and myths, and explore the roots of creativity. I painted these works in opposition to my own self-criticism and lack of faith in my abilities, and have broken through to achieve the freedom to dream again and explore the vast depths of the human soul. 

My hope is that while you glimpse into my mind through these paintings and peer into these ethereal and mystical realms envisioned within me, that you, too, can begin your own journey of exploration into your own creative heart. I hope that my art will help you slay the dragons of hatred and self-criticism so that you can find your own freedom of self-expression.