My statement as an artist is more of a statement on how I think about printmaking. Above all, this new series of prints is a formal experiment grounded in pleasure and  aesthetics.  After two decades as a professional artist, this show is a return to pure printmaking via the musical compositional techniques that, for me, have always remained untainted by the critical discourses (i.e., “overthinking”) that (again, for me) often get in the way of printmaking. Layering prints – mixing and then remixing pieces together – allows for improvisation and surprise. (The same way Teo Macero’s production work allowed the sublimity of Miles Davis to emerge via jam sessions that were collated and curated into “albums” that could have never been imagined beforehand by the players.) Enjoyment in this compositional process – versus a predetermined “final product” – is key: Rejecting rigid formal structure, the pieces interact and come alive when combined in ways that I could never have anticipated. By inserting this additional layer of the unexpected into my prints, I attempt to embrace the aesthetic “mistakes” of printmaking that are just as important as the preordained accomplishments of technique. What I ultimately see and feel in these works is not what you should necessarily feel and see. But, as I make these pieces, the juxtaposed constellations of intended and accidental images and patterns are ultimately an exercise in the soothing quality of art: A reflection of the human tendency to find peace, or even beauty, both in the face of struggle, confusion, and pain and in our processes for living through them.