I am interested in manipulating the western posturing that insists on a phenomenological gap between depiction and abstraction within painting. By negating images with peripheral disruptions or obliterating them completely, I am able to accentuate (and attempt to eliminate) the historical distinction that remains between these two modes on a single surface through an integrated iconoclasm. In this way, my work is about the tension between pictorial reality and the actuality of painting, questioning the conventions of abstract expressionism while allowing my subject matter to become independent of its narrative load and distinct from its origin.