what is this style of art?

In order to describe this style, which I’ve coined “low-relief halftone”, we have to start with the basics of halftone printing.

Halftone printing is a technique used to create gradient and shading via different sized dots of color (generally cyan, yellow, magenta, and black). Imagine a small square image with a smooth gradient from black at the top to white at the bottom, with various grays in the middle. There is no actual white ink on the image, it’s simply varying amounts of black ink that transition the gradient from pure black, to gray, to pure white.

My first exposure to halftones was in screen printing, where different sized holes in an mesh screen allow different amounts of ink to passthrough to a poster or a t-shirt, which creates gradient, shading, and depth. Way back when, I was doing a lot of street art stenciling and started using a leather punch and mylar sheets to create halftone stencils which were more portable and richer in detail than traditional multi-layered stencils.

Eventually I transitioned from concrete to canvas, but still wanted more depth and dimension than a flat stencil image on canvas can provide. Through various explorations and prototypes I developed a style of drilling halftone patterns by hand into acrylic sheets (plexiglass) and filling those patterns with spray paint. This technique creates so much more depth and dimension via multiple layers of acrylic where each dot casts shadow on the layers beneath. They are both painting and sculpture at the same time. A composition that is more than the sum of its parts (dots).

This process is extremely labor intensive, and requires patience and precision. Using acrylic as a medium is incredibly unforgiving, and forces my scattered brain to intently focus; one mistake will ruin an entire piece with no options for recovery. The drilling process is controlled and focused and intentional. After the sheets are drilled and ready to paint, I release all that control and allow the piece the freedom to come out however it does via painting. There are always imperfections and bleed through when filling in the holes, and that imperfection is what makes each piece truly unique and ultimately human.

There is no possible way to reproduce these works; they exist as individual pieces and no two can ever possibly be the same.

As an artist, the beauty is in the process: the design and control and perfection of the drilling vs. the freedom and imperfection of the painting. My works exists as both painting and sculpture; simultaneously controlled and chaotic; occupying the vase middle ground between perfect and imperfect.