His timeless black & white paintings, are inspired by the classical era, an interview with American painter E. Gibbons.
How would you personally describe the nature of your art?
I would say my work is sensual without being sexual. I look for the beauty of the pose and I seek timelessness in my images. I want people to look at my work and not know when it was painted. I also like to add a moral message to my work, to give it “meat”, so It’s not pretty for the sake of prettiness.
What artists, art periods, are an inspiration for your own work? And in what way?
Neoclassical, because of it’s classical nature, the way I organize the figure, the drapes I use and the inherent message of each piece. This is similar to how Jacques Louis David would have worked except I am working with the figure in a box.
Where are your ideas coming from? Does your work reflect your own erotic fantasies & desires?
My ideas come from my own life, as an artist, human and a man. I get an idea in my head, I sketch it and all it’s permutations. Then I work with a model to get it onto the canvas. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t great working with models with amazing bodies. To see someone on the street or at an art function and ask, “Hey would you like to pose for me?” It’s a high. That said I must say I have never EVER done anything remotely sexual with a model. Their comfort level is far more important than my own fantasies.
What you biggest artistic frustration? Or main struggle in your creation process?
Time. I am already a pretty fast painter creating a piece every week or two, depending on it’s complexity. I also hold down a full time teaching job, which takes up 8 hours a day.
Is it easy to find places to display your work? Or is erotic art still somewhat taboo in your country?
I am fortunate that the largest body of my work is classical enough to “Pass” as non-erotic. I have a few frontal pieces that I can only show at erotic exhibitions, or galleries that have a more open mind. I have found my gallery in Provincetown (Lyman-Eyer Gallery) and Philadelphia (Rodger Lapelle Gallery) to have no problem showing frontal work. Their open minds also translate into sales as they both sell the most of my work. That said though, it has taken me a few years to build a nice base of galleries, but they were hard to find. I put in a lot of walking time to actually visit galleries and see who really shows nudes. If they show a male nude, then that’s the kind of gallery I want to be in. I am loyal to my galleries and funnel sales through them. For every 1 gallery that will show my work, I would guess there are 200 others that won’t touch it.
Can you provide a link to a website that you consider a must, a great place to visit?
Here are some great websites I personally visit from time to time, to see new art, find models, get ideas. Ah la la Paris : male models, art, and trash, G0ys.org : for pose Ideas, they have tons of great thumbnails.
