GRAFFCONOGRAPHY

Bringing Graffiti into conversation with Christian Iconography

My work begins with self examination and a deep, almost desperate search for God. I challenge lifelong conceptions that limit what I am able to see and experience, while remaining rooted in the faith and tradition of the Church. This pursuit carries a responsibility to place my abilities at His service.

I call my visual language Graffconography, bringing graffiti into conversation with Christian iconography. I am drawn to graffiti’s dual nature. On building walls, passing trains, and busy streets, it interrupts daily routines, addressing people who have not chosen to enter a gallery. Beneath bridges, along secluded tracks, and inside abandoned buildings, it becomes intimate, encountered through solitude or chance. These hidden spaces form unofficial galleries, accessible even to people excluded from established art institutions. This movement between public declaration and private encounter informs how I approach sacred imagery: as an unexpected meeting outside familiar settings of devotion that can open toward contemplation and prayer.

Working in acrylic and aerosol, I use bold color, heavy black lines, and fractured shapes. The divisions suggest struggles and contradictions within a life of faith, while the contours hold each figure within a recognizable whole. I build surfaces with paint and gesso, scrape them back, and rework them, leaving earlier marks visible. This process echoes what draws me to the saints: conversion transforms a life without erasing its history.

Prayer and solitude sustain my practice. Shame, resistance, longing, gratitude, and wonder lead me to examine my experience alongside the particular histories of those I depict. Their lives challenge my understanding of what faith requires of me.

Holiness is not the absence of struggle. I seek to represent the saints faithfully through a contemporary visual language, directing attention beyond the painted surface toward the person represented. I hope the work invites sustained looking and makes space for prayer.