I am drawn to representational genre scenes, intimate scenes of everyday life, of ordinary people at work or play. I love to capture people in the moment, in candid unscripted poses with unguarded expressions. The intent is to create visual metaphors of narrative moments in ongoing stories of life.

Observing people is a frequent practice of mine. I am most interested in the thoughtful attitudes that are conveyed by the human form, whether body gestures or facial expressions. While I do work from live models when possible, it is more convenient to work from photo references because my scenes generally involve multiple people. Photo references also allow me the opportunity to merge several elements from different photos into one scene, or create several different paintings of different scenes from just a single photo.

Capturing the expressive characteristics connected to a scene of people can be quite elusive. But it is that challenge that drives my work and gives me great satisfaction when I succeed. My hope is that my paintings encourage the viewer to connect with life on a different level and see themselves and everyone as an integral part of the human experience.

-JC