Brian received his BFA in painting and drawing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and currently resides in Asheville, NC. I think that my being born of a Caucasian father and Chinese mother coupled with spending recent summers traveling and teaching in Hong Kong and China have had a profound influence on my work. I find that the density of population along with the overwhelming infrastructure in some of the larger cities in China, and namely Hong Kong, provide a unique and telling aesthetic. While overseas, I observed layers of buildings and endless rows of skyscrapers with a continuous ebb and flow of people, reminiscent of tides. And, while I do not fully subscribe to the idea of the human race as a virus, I do think these cities epitomize visually the human condition and its subsequent effect on the environment. Witnessing such an abundance of life and growth has had a deep effect on myself and my work that I do not yet fully understand. Walking down a street 7000 miles away from my home, surrounded by millions of people, and being virtually unable to communicate with anyone provides me with a feeling of solitude, in some ways very similar to that of walking in the woods of Western North Carolina. To be surrounded by so many people, all of which I will never encounter again, in a way makes me invisible. The ability to go unnoticed offers a sense of security and provides an excellent opportunity for an avid voyeur. These ideas of excess, solitude, degradation of the planet and serenity in chaos coupled with an odd obsession with family, human, and romantic interactions have also had a great influence on my work. In my paintings, I employ excessive layering of skylines and the implementation of narratives based on solitude, desire, and abandonment. These are my attempts to visually document a fast-paced, crowded world combined with an appreciation of basic human emotions. I believe a painting is what it is. While there are great paintings that possess the potential to inspire and uplift, it all depends on the viewer’s interpretation of the piece. That is to say that in order for a piece to be truly successful, it must strike a chord with the viewer. For this reason, I try to allow the situations depicted in my work to be transferable to the experiences of a diverse audience.