I grew up in rural Pennsylvania in a town of no more than a few thousand residents. Deeply conservative, most placed religion above all else, and anyone deviating from religious doctrine was treated as a herald of immorality. I was a man whose love for men violated the cultural norms, forcing me to conceal my life from others, causing feelings of guilt and alienation.

In my paintings, I represent fantasies and fears about the Other through depictions of the everyday queer male experience. I compose paintings that deliver the realism of daily life while imbuing it with homoerotic flirtation. Based on my relationships, experiences, and imagination, my work functions like a daydream where memory and longing shape a personal fiction. Radiant skin tones and dreamy settings lovingly rendered bespeak my fascination with the sexuality of oil paint: the painting, from tender brushstrokes to the treatment of the ground, is a process like masturbation or sex. By presenting homoerotic images of ubiquitous scenes that appeal to mainstream audiences, the work is universal and human.