ABOUT ME
I was born in 1993 and have always called Jacksonville, FL home. When drawing or painting growing up, I gained inspiration from various movies, shows, books and video games - usually sci-fi or fantasy themes. Art classes throughout my time in public school taught me about influential artists of the past and really helped me progress my own technique, particularly in high school. After graduating high school in 2012, I enrolled at the University of North Florida to pursue a BFA in Graphic Design. I then decided to change my major and graduated with a BFA in Painting, Drawing and Printmaking in 2016. During high school, college and several years following, I played in multiple bands - the main one being Yashira for over 6 years. I am eternally grateful for all of the support we received, all of the opportunities and memories made throughout the years playing shows all over the U.S.. After graduating from UNF in 2016, I got hired at a custom signs / graphics shop called Miller Creative Group in January 2017 and have been a designer there to this day.
PROCESS
I've used traditional mediums growing up until high school, then eventually used Photoshop the majority of the time by 2012. My appreciation for graphic design and digital art broadly speaking increased over time, and switching between graphic design projects and illustrating using the same program was inherently convenient.
Although I use Photoshop with a desktop monitor, I always use a wireless mouse rather than a drawing tablet like many digital artists use. Regardless if I'm going for stroke effects or using a stippling technique like I have in many works, it just felt natural at some point and have stuck with it. For recent works and works in progress now I am going in a more deliberate direction utilizing layers and going for a more painterly finish, in a sense trying to achieve a higher quality finish even with the additional time required. Unless there's a deadline to abide by, I do believe in letting a piece evolve and not trying to find shortcuts or work at an irregular pace just to finish something . That being said I hope to start completing work at a quicker pace sooner than later.
That said I will always admire tangible, non-digital art for what it can entail and represent through so many eras. I do not use AI and likely never will, and take pride in the process of making art through trial and error, developing over time and evolving into a final form.
MUSIC
Music began to make an impact on my life starting back in 2008 when I started going to shows and play guitar in a band. I eventually played in a band called Nisroch from 2011-2014, releasing a couple demos and played a number of local shows. Nisroch gave me a sense of how it could be to take being in a band a bit more seriously and took place after discovering bands that impacted me like Converge, Intronaut, Torche, YOB, Isis, Baroness, Rotten Sound, Pelican, Neurosis, Amenra and countless others. In 2015, I was invited by my friend and drummer of Nisroch Seth to join Yashira. After the first few practices writing a few tracks, it definitely felt like we were on to something. We released our 1st album Shrine in 2018 through Good Fight Music and played with a ton of great bands in various cities and venues. After the tragic passing of our drummer Seth in December of 2018, we eventually decided to proceed a few months after by finishing the collection of songs already being written and eventually recorded and released our 2nd album, Fail To Be, in 2020 through Good Fight Music. After a couple of incredible tours in 2021, 2022, and 7 total releases, we essentially decided to stop in May of 2022. I personally can't describe how fortunate I feel to have been a part of all the life-affirming moments and for the profound sense of connection and perspective attained throughout our different phases. Following Yashira, I played for a short period in a band called Drag Pattern before deciding to take a break from making music in 2023.
