Honorable Mention Awarded at Monmouth Musuem

     On March 2nd, 2025, I attended the opening of the Monmouth Museum's 45th Annual Juried Exhibition. This Museum is local to where I reside in Monmouth County, NJ, and a bunch of my students were able to attend as well. In fact, this was the first exhibitions debut of one of my students, Joe Hom, with his amazing charcoal drawing, Between the Lines. 

The jurors announced the winners of the exhibition, and I was very grateful and honored to have received an Honorable Mention Award for my piece, The Endeavor.  

"The Endeavor is a deeply personal self-portrait that I started painting during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the largest painting I had completed to date, marking a significant milestone in my artistic journey. The paper flowers surrounding me in the piece are from a paper flower business I owned in 2020, a passion that I tried to pursue as a business but lost interest in. During and for a bit after the creation of this painting, I also worked as an art gallery Director for nearly two years. "The Endeavor" pays homage to my pursuit of Fine Art, and how I always end up back at an easel with a paint brush."

This painting is on display until April 17th, 2025. After that, it will come back to my studio where it will reside until its next exhibition.

The Endeavor has been shown at Arcadia Contemporary in NYC,  DETOUR Gallery, The John F. Peto Museum, and The Estuary prior to this exhibit. It has helped me gain portrait commissions, as well as share my love of portraiture locally.