The portrait has never lost its power to serve as a reminder that artistic realism need never be dull. My goal as a portrait artist is to capture the inner life of an individual while documenting an existence in time. It is fascinating to me that muscles reflective of emotion are directly attached to the skin in the face. The resulting range is limitless in the contradictions that can co-exist within an individual; it is a kind of soul catching experience occurring just outside of conscious awareness. My chosen medium is oil, sometimes pastel, both of which best function to represent the subject with character, color and poetry. Everyone has a story. I try to reveal these stories in my work.