The white surface in Edits & Omissions references the now obsolete idea of "white-out" -- of ways that we retract or call back certain ideas through editing. In the hands of an average person, a bottle of white-out is innocent, but what happens when it is in the hands of power? There is great danger in this because power lies with too few and the histories that we are taught are heavily edited and full of omissions. What is absent is as important, if not more so, than what we are shown.

When I began these paintings I was inspired by the global refugee crisis and how emigrants were leaving behind everything they knew for a chance at survival, however, for me, the work has expanded. I have grown to consider these as reflections on invisibility in all of its manifestations: refugees, those struggling to make ends meet, victims of conflict, our history with slavery and racism, culture wars, our nation's deep political divide, and the ongoing battle to control who tells the story. What is happening to ordinary individuals matters and how we tell their story matters. The people recording our history matter a great deal and without diverse voices involved in the process it is clear to see how much we have omitted from the public record. The paintings in Edits & Omissions begin as other paintings similar to the ones you can see in other galleries on my website. Once a painting has been exhibited for a few years, I use an editing process to paint over them until only trace artifacts remain. It is important to me that the works underneath were once paintings in their own rite, because it embodies within them a past that is only visible through the residual surface scars and visual shrapnel that remains.