My paintings hold stillness like a landscape but hum like something alive. I'm drawn to abandoned houses for the same reason, the way a room can hold the vacancy of someone who just left, the seat still warm though the body's gone. That's what I'm after: the emptiness and the once-fullness of the vessel, both at once. I'm interested in duende, too: the earthy, irrational, slightly diabolical charge that comes from staying close to mortality and mystery rather than smoothing them over. I'm not trying to resolve any of it, just paint close enough to feel the heat still coming off the seat.