In my work, I search for methods of creating that question the process, meaning, and definition of abstraction. I acknowledge that much of contemporary painting is viewed through the lens of its vast history and that every brushstroke is automatically loaded with art-historical reference. My practice begins by using established vocabularies of painting such as pours, drips, stains and brushstrokes as homage to that history. For example, I stain the canvas with paint or drag a loaded brush across the canvas causing paint to drip down the surface. Afterward, the stains and drips are laboriously reworked. Tiny areas inside of a drip is repainted with small brushstrokes or the stain is carefully outlined and filled in with another color. The area inside the drip or stain becomes the arena where a new and personal response is made.