When did you begin painting? Did you always want to be an artist?

My artistic journey began when I was a small child. I was drawing all the time because it was an exciting and immediate way of bringing my imagination to life. I don’t recall ever thinking that I wanted to become an artist, because like breathing, art was just something that I had to do. My parents sent me to after school classes at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) when I was around 10, which was a formative experience that introduced me to new mediums such as painting, printmaking and sculpture. From there, I went onto University to get my degree in Fine Arts.

You have developed a distinctive visual language that straddles geometric abstraction and surrealism. Did it grow organically or is it a product of deliberate experimentation? What were the key inspirations and artistic influences that contributed to the evolution of your style?

The foundation for my visual language is inextricably connected to my interest in psychology, although I didn’t consciously set out to capture psychology in my art. These two things just naturally collided on the canvas.

I’m inspired by people, art and nature. Artistically, I’m inspired by Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz,Richard Neutra, Picasso, Rembrandt and Wifredo Lam; jazz music is also an influence because of the improvisation and freeform approach.

Why are you drawn to geometric forms?

When I was a teenager, my mother gave me a book about the Myers-Briggs personality indicator which explores the modularity of people’s personalities. I became fascinated with this way of looking at people. That led to me using geometric shapes to represent the building blocks for a person’s personality. It all really made sense to me. I like geometric forms because of their simplicity and directness. Like musical notes, there are an infinite number of combinations that can be used to create very powerful and moving expressions.

Who are the subjects of your portraits? Do you create these works from live sittings, photographs, or a combination of both?

The people I paint are real people in my life that have touched me in some way. It could be a family member, a friend, or it could be a musician that I really like. I draw upon my feelings about a person to formulate the interplay between the shapes in each portrait that I create.

What types of characteristics, qualities or quirks do you look for when painting a portrait? How are these translated into geometric blocks?

There isn’t a Rosetta Stone to translate what the individual shapes mean. They’re meant to be seen as a whole. It’s really about the combination of the pieces and how they interact with one another that creates the personality. I don’t deliberately choose the shapes – they’re manifested subconsciously and expressed in a stream of consciousness.

Talk us through your creative process. Do you set out every detail in preliminary sketches before you start painting? How long does it take to complete a portrait?

I always begin with a pencil and paper. I make a quick gestural drawing of someone that I have in mind. From there, I use Photoshop to add some colour to the sketch, and then I take it to the canvas and paint it. The sculptures always follow the painting. Although the preliminary pencil sketch is very simple, I’m always quite surprised with how much the final work looks like the initial sketch. I find it reassuring that I am able to maintain the purity and energy of the initial idea in the final iteration.

There is a particular meticulousness in your work in the way every form is painted and structured. How important are precision and order, and why?

The initial pencil sketches are rough and fast. The intention is never perfection, it’s all about catching the idea and feeling as quickly as possible. Once captured, I spend a lot of time refining it on canvas to bring it to life. At this stage, I really focus on precision and execution. My intention is to create a portrait that feels as real and tangible as a portrait in the flesh.

You work in painting, sculpture, and video. How do these mediums compare in terms of artistic expression?

I enjoy the elasticity of my visual language because it enables me to experiment in different mediums. Fundamentally, the work is concerned with volume and space, so the movement between mediums feels very intuitive to me. For example, when you look at one of my paintings, I think it’s quite easy to imagine how it might look as a sculpture in the physical space. The same is true for film and digital.

How has the algorithmically ordered, AI-powered digital world that we live in influenced you as an artist?

AI has no idea what my next painting will look like – only I do, and I take great comfort in that. I have never used AI, and I will continue to go out of my way to avoid it.

What are you working on now? Are there any exhibitions coming up?

I’m currently working on my upcoming exhibition with Perrotin Seoul [August 30 - October 19, 2024]. It’s called ‘Ghost in the Machine’.