I have always been drawn to fantasy and sci-fi, and art is the way I translate my ideas into something tangible and shareable with others. Creating scenes and subjects that don’t exist, and yet have an immediate visual connection to real life, allows people to become immersed into a piece and start exploring that world. My work doesn’t necessarily have any hidden meanings or explicit message, instead I want viewers to get lost in the details and start imagining their own narratives and characters that could inhabit that space. This is similar to how I start planning a new piece, by taking in elements, often from nature and historical art, and start adding in elements that are otherworldly and surreal. Fantasy simply provides me with a visual language and I can use when drafting my images and subjects onto paper.

My work is heavily inspired by the intricate and macabre woodcuts and engravings of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. While prints from that era often centered on religious themes or life’s hardships, I try to depict more fantastical and surreal subjects. However, the medieval obsession with death was not lost on me, as skeletons are a recurring character in my imagery.

Artists like Alan Lee, Arthur Rackham, Gustave Doré, and Hal Foster sparked my interest in fantasy art. It wasn’t until later, when I discovered Dürer, Bruegel, and other renowned printmakers, that I chose to consolidate the themes and aesthetics found in their works through the medium of printmaking, while also incorporating some of my own style.

Initially, I was drawn to relief and intaglio processes, as those were the traditional methods used to create the works I was inspired by. Carving away at a block of wood felt as archaic as the subject matter I was engraving onto it, and grounded my work in a historical technique. As I began producing more intricate illustrations, screen printing became a more convenient method due to its flexibility and ease of editioning. Drawing inspiration from early 20th-century publications like Prince Valiant, I opted to incorporate halftones and color into my pieces as they evolved beyond the gothic visual style I had started with. My work blends the visual language of medieval printmaking with modern processes and my own imagined worlds.