Art

Talking to Strangers

The Talking to Strangers series represents the first major stage of my artistic practice. Created over more than a decade and exhibited throughout British Columbia, these portraits explore identity, memory, and the uncertainty of how we perceive one another.

Rather than creating conventional likenesses, I became interested in the psychological space between recognition and ambiguity. Built through successive layers of paint, texture, and mark-making, the portraits suggest that identity is never fixed but continually shaped by memory, experience, and projection. Each painting invites viewers to construct their own narrative rather than presenting a single, definitive interpretation.

This series laid the foundation for my later work. The ideas of layering, concealment, and transformation that began in these portraits would eventually evolve into my abstract Plexiglas paintings and, more recently, my interventions on found images.

Selected Exhibitions

Works from Talking to Strangers have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout British Columbia, including galleries in Vancouver, New Westminster, Mission, Summerland, Trail, Williams Lake, and West Vancouver.