I hope to afford the viewer an understanding that the animal is abstract, that monsters are abstract, and thus, abstractions are merely conflations of readily identifiable things and conditions that cannot be succinctly articulated. In short, abstractions are representations and assimilations of the "other", that which is foreign, unusual, or anomalous. To this end I have always made paintings that refer to other paintings in an effort to treat abstraction figuratively while forcing figuration to function abstractly. Inverting visual expectations. The overall motive for this project is to illuminate that things are not as they seem nor are categories, (which are simply tools for making sense), necessarily fixed and static despite disciplinary rules.