My work is about drawing

Whether it's because I've been doing it for a long time, something to do with my wiring or a little of both; I make drawings. Part of the reason is because I want to place a concept onto a physical object so I can see it with my own eyes. The distance between having the mental image and starting is very short. I draw because making art is also a method of study. So if I draw the uterus I'm studying the uterus. If I draw the human torso, I'm studying the human torso. Making art is also a way of trying to relate to something. I imagine what it would be like to have wings and hooves if I was Baphomet, for example. Like in the occasionally ongoing series of self-portraits as something. I wonder what it feels like to have a very long neck, like in the occasionally ongoing series of fictional people with very long necks.

Preparation to draw is minimal, if any. Sometimes I might secure paper to a board or the wall and sharpen a pencil, but even sharpening a pencil is nonexistent if I use a ballpoint pen. I use only one pencil during the making of a drawing because I like to make all tones by hand, which makes everything simple. Sometimes I incorporate a few other tools. For charcoal drawings I also use blending stumps, powdered charcoal and brushes. I use these additional tools mostly at the beginning of a drawing because they help me get through the sketch portion quickly. When I've put things in the generally correct area, I polish the drawing until I'm done.

I enjoy every stage and aspect of the process of making a drawing. From having the urge to draw an idea, to the first lines and erasures, the first tones and smudges, forms changing, the internal dialogue, correcting and moving, looking for additional references or forcing myself to work from my head. I enjoy the constant problem solving, the friction between the core of my pencil and the paper's fiber, the sounds drawing makes and its scents. I enjoy calibrating the relationships of heavy and soft marks, dark and light tones and between the marks and tones themselves. I enjoy getting dirty with powdered carbon, shaping the tip of the lead to a point, watching an area fill in with white noise, observing the fibers which make up my paper and degrading a tone. While drawing I might feel confident, studious, curious, scared, anxious, overwhelmed, ambitious, determined and avoidant. I discover deep concentration and vast amounts of patience within me. Drawing puts my integrity to the test, because I can choose to draw things I consider beautiful and up to my own quality standard or I can draw something just well enough for a viewer to like about some current trend subject matter.

Drawing makes me terrifyingly powerful because every single mark made, not made or erased that will be part of the resulting whole is a choice I made. With each line and problem to be solved, drawing asks whether I will choose to be responsible for all decisions taken. Drawing has bitter, frustrating moments and it also has the most gratifying ones.

Subject matter: myself and the human body

Around 2013 self-portraits became my proof that I was truly studying at The New York Academy of Art. A reason I draw self-portraits now is because I am the only model I can always afford and who knows exactly what I want. Self-portraits serve the purpose of digesting previous experiences, viewing my past behavior critically, indulging in visions of myself as a powerful mythological creature and appreciatively studying my face and body as I age. Observing myself in the mirror is strange and interestingly hypnotizing, but I draw self-portraits because looking in the mirror isn't enough. Looking in the mirror is a moment that ceases to be when I move. With a self-portrait I slowly freeze and dissect the point in time. It is then seasoned with notions during which I mull over the surface and ideas related to what I'm drawing. These inward reflections marinade and do something like maturing while I work. Drawing self-portraits has helped to better understand myself, because within the inner dialogue I can be scathingly critical and brutally honest with myself as the only judge, and I can explore ideas without fear of being shamed or censored. This untethered, challenging and intrepid exploration of thoughts is profoundly liberating and enlightening.

I also draw the body. I draw the human figure because I'm never done learning about it. Mother Nature's work is dizzyingly mindblowing. I get answers to questions, which produces further questions. I get answers, but very often need them reiterated. The variations in the appearance of bodies, the psychological and mythical variations and the ways in which the body can be depicted in drawing are infinite. It doesn't matter how much I draw, I can still learn and draw more. I have plans to draw the surface of the skin and the musculature in different ways, with different light, from different angles, from the inside and outside. I may have drawn many different bodies and self-portraits, both fictional and real, but bodies, myself and my ideas are going to change. This means a whole new set of variables is waiting to go through the filter of my body for me to draw them.

My body and the human figure in general are products of Mother Nature, and I consider her the most significant reason for which I am driven to make art. I don't always understand her logic, but I strive to earn understanding through my drawings and my life.

The tradition of depicting the figure

I believe the body has been portrayed consistently throughout history because we have an open-ended love-hate relationship with our entire existence. We can't make sense of it and can't figure out the justification. Nature's reasons for anything and everything are a mystery, we don't like them and we resent her. We feel inconsolably alone and confused on Earth and the Universe, because we childishly think of being the only ones to be self-aware as the worst possible thing. Seven billion humans apparently are not enough to share the loneliness with. In this desolate sense I hypothesize we depict the body: as a way to reach out. My depictions of myself and the body are how I reach within and out. I make art to attempt an understanding of Nature's arresting and humbling beauty.