I was born in a blue collar, working class suburb of Chicago in 1962 to the parents of Brant and Judith. My father was a teacher at the local high school and my mother spent her time raising her two children. At an early age I was introduced to the Episcopal Church. Encouraged by my parents, though not forced, I found a home within this institution. Looking to become more involved in the services, I entered a studies program that would prepare me for the duties of an acolyte. As an intrinsic part of the high mass ceremonies, and a deeply devout member of the Church, I was beginning to acquire the religious visual vocabulary that would later play so heavily in my work.

At the age of nine, My parents' marriage was starting to show the signs of deterioration that had been under the surface for years. In the summer of 1972, my mother left. Leaving nothing more than a note on the kitchen table. She made some attempts to see my sister and me over the next year but then disappeared. Vanished. Not knowing if she was alive or dead, I assumed the latter. My father finished the job of raising the children.

I graduated high school in 1980 and was still very involved with the church. Though I never did well within the traditional academic institutions, my real education came from the extensive travels I took with my father. With every penny my father could save and every brake from his teachings, my father, sister, and I would criss-cross the country. By traveling to every state in the nation, sometimes several times over, my father showed my sister and me the history and flavor of the US. It was during these long travels at the age of about fifteen that I began to draw. As a way to entertain myself, I began to explore the fertile ground of my imagination by creating fantastic worlds with pencil and paper. As my sister and I grew, my father extended our travels to other countries. Driving throughout Mexico and Canada and then overseas to Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland, I was given a view of the world I could never have learned from a text book. My last trip with my father was to Africa shortly before leaving home in 1982.

I continued to expore the world through pencil and paint during my high school years. Then upon graduation I was accepted into the Art Institute of Chicago. This would mark the most tragic period of my life. Disillusioned by the lack of technical proficiency I observed in my teachers and their attitudes toward art, my work began to suffer. What was once free and wild was deteriorating into nothing but paintings of empty rooms. There was however, a tremendous visual vocabulary of the city that was being etched into my brain. I learned more from the rusting and dilapidated buildings, the wonderful display of urban decay I passed by on my way to the Art Institute than I ever did inside the walls of that much toted institution.

At this same time of artistic struggle, I experienced several tragic events. The suicide of a friend, and the car crash of several others only marked the beginning of more to come. While at the Art Institute of Chicago, my girlfriend at the time attempted suicide. She was then institutionalized. Shortly after that, I became good friends with one of only two teachers I respected, only to have her taken when she was killed by a hit and run motorist while on vacation in Los Angeles. The last straw was when my mother reappeared into my life after eleven years of not knowing whether she was alive or dead. A great bitterness set in and the anger I felt towards my mother for her abandonment would also be an influential aspect in my future work.

Finding myself at the edge of suicide and developing a great anger at God for the losses I witnessed, I decided to leave the Church, family, and my home town of Chicago and moved to San Diego, California in the spring of 1983. The culture shock redefined my work. The images of death began to dissipate and after years of doing representational work I suddenly turned to abstraction. Bright colors and airy themes were the trade marks of this time period. At this time I met a woman and moved in with her. Life seemed oddly safe. The anger was hidden away.

In the fall of 1984 we moved to Atlanta, Georgia because of her job transfer. From there we transferred to Dallas, Texas and after two years of living in the South, we were transferred to Los Angeles, California. We spent six years in Los Angeles. The stability of living in one town for an extended period of time allowed me to explode creatively. It was in Los Angeles that I was represented by the John Thomas Gallery. A close friendship developed between the gallery director and myself. The director had given me great support to explore different media and concepts. At this time I lived behind an old oil field and every morning I would walk along the broken machinery and abandoned buildings, reminiscent of my walks to the Art Institute of Chicago. An earthy spirituality, something that had been missing inside of me for so long, began to shape the work of this time. Found objects that I would find on my walks were given life within the canvas. I also began to explore the texturizing of the canvas at this point, something that would become one of my trademarks.

After much visual experimentation, the anger that had been pushed under the surface for so long was beginning to bubble up.The issues regarding my relationship to God and the deaths of my friends demanded a return to a representational style of painting. The work was starting to pull together various aspects of my life. The textures of the city were blending with the international references and a new dialogue of religious thought.

My relationship however, was beginning to die and me along with it. During the riots of 1992 in Los Angeles, we were once again transferred. This time to San Francisco, California. Once established there, I began to work in my studio with a renewed fervor. While the rest of my life was falling apart, my work was prolific. Alcoholism began to rear its' ugly head as I withdrew further and further into the world of the canvas. The feeling of suffocation and the self-destructive tendencies were beginning to take form in paint. With this the "Dark Works" series was born. Brooding and dark with images of masochism and pain, the line between life and art was disappearing. The spiral downwards was reaching a point of no return.

It was at this lowest point, I met my future wife. I left my old life for her and for myself and shed the empty shell I had become. Though disabled from a fall down a flight of stairs some years earlier, through her I saw life beyond the canvas. It was within these influences that my "Fallen Angels" series developed. My wife's injury and subsequent disability began to inject additional vocabulary into my work.

As life changes a man, the raging fires from old battles begin to fade. Such was the case with me. I grew weary from anger. My soul demanded peace. I began to face some of the factors that were contributing to my self-destructive behaviors. As I began to deal with my alcoholism and manic/depressive disorder, I was finally able to see the world as it truly is. In this new light I re-entered my quest for answers. The same answers man has been asking since the beginning of time. I did not necessarily like what I had found. I did find a wondrous universe. Beauty and amazement in everything from the atom to the galaxy. What I did not find was the God of my youth. The anthropomorphic image of a God, heaven, hell, angels and demons, all vanished into the mist. Having to find a new place in the universe without a soul, I begin with "The Icons" series.