Artist Statement

My family’s ties to Exxon go back four generations and a portfolio of oil stocks is compounding in my name and on my conscience. A short yet impactful history of laborers, diehard brand loyalists, and investment has culminated in the leather seated, chevy suburban childhood I took for the norm. The ethereal twinkling lights and brightly burning gas flares floating along Interstate 10 remain a nocturnal magic on the drive home to Houston.

This rural, oil glutted culture focused on driving from the earliest ages possible, was a source of deep pride. Using vehicles as a thoughtless, rugged pastime, my childhood was blind to the environmental degradation caused by fuel consumption. By painting the brief moments of my closest physical proximity to industry, the distance between the privileges of my life and the means which make it a reality is paused for consideration.

The implication of isolation within the paintings makes the viewer a complicit figure. Alternatively, the intimate line drawings are filled with the faces of my childhood. These kids shamelessly occupy the worn spaces of vehicles and travel. Sleeping or smiling, seat belts and road trips are a commonplace illusion of safety. Delicate line work builds up over the skin of the children, harkening to a topographic map; and a similar wavering of color and line permeates the paintings. The damage and the shame of the oil and gas industry is woven into the beloved American past time of driving, an improper allocation of weight which I feel daily.