Gallery

It begins with a composition in thought. A laborer commuting to the job site on the back of a crowded pickup at dawn. Working men, women, and children building homes and businesses. Food workers and street hawkers. No frills survival in places far from their country of origin. Inspiration based on experiences and encounters of growing up and living in SEA are part of what drives the visualization from sketches to putting brush and paint on canvas. Working primarily from my own research photos, the painting process builds on these past experiences to help tell the story. This story of labor has been told by many others more eloquently than my own. Yet it’s a story that seems to have no end. My hope is to simply add another page to this un-ending condition of the Asian laborer by sharing my paintings and drawings to continue building awareness. I hope you enjoy the work.

Acrylic and Oil Paintings

These paintings are primarily created on natural canvas and done following a classical grisaille foundation and a limited palette of five colors and in some instances four. All the oil paintings incorporate traditional mediums providing long term permanency in color pigments. Natural fiber canvases are stretched on wood frames; fiberboards/wood panels are gessoed and sanded in multiple layers before painting.

Watercolor Paintings

Early studies from Chiang Mai, Thailand along with a few from my travels to upper Burma are shown below. Done primarily as quick studies, they’re useful as visual notes for light, color, and composition for reference later in painting. A few of these are painted plein air on location while others are worked on in the studio referencing photos taken onsite. Watercolors are less cumbersome to manage when traveling and allow a looser interpretation of the subject. Working wet-on-wet using color washes to flow freely onto the paper, the process can be difficult to control. As the paper begins to dry, forms and shapes are defined by adding layers of color to provide depth and vibrancy. 

Drawings

Here are drawings that I’ve done in various media — charcoal, graphite, and ink. Mainly explorations for my oil paintings, these drawings help to provide an approach and strategy to composition, light, and form to be applied in a painting. Loosely drawn, the images appear more expressive in line, shape, and form.