While explicit in their unapologetic allure, my paintings present a contemporary investigation of the quintessential conflict between our notions of beauty and futility, perfection and impossibility. I explore these dualities by using improbable juxtapositions of representational and abstract imagery with decorative motifs and patterns taken from elements in such interiors as eighteenth-century French and German rococo and twentieth-mid-century modern contemporary interiors. I am interested in how these elaborately adorned spaces, both public and private, become visual and psychologically compelling substitutes for a presumed sense of harmony, comfort, and prosperity. My paintings are meant to implicate and seduce viewers by confronting them with a stereotypical interpretation of the “beautiful painting,” willful in its attention to detail, intense color, and refinement of surface, at the same time that it exploits the tension between reality and illusion. Purposely not limiting subject matter to one particular idea, I am questioning the premise that there is a predictable evolution to the history of painting.