In the year 2000, after 16 years of 'writing', something fundamentally shifted in the way I saw Graffiti art in general, and my work in specific. I began to feel confined by the rules and strict technical codes of Graffiti lettering styles. For me the process became a form of ‘painting by numbers' where an outline was created, colors were chosen, and the rest was a set formula with little room for improvisation. Simultaneously, I began to study the work of the Abstract Expressionists particularly Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Clifford Still, and in their work I saw an opening, a freedom, that was missing from the mannerism of traditional Graffiti.

I began to approach my paintings differently. I decided to abandon the technique that I was so comfortable with. I took away the traditional tools of medium and color, and I de-emphasized the skills of precision that I had honed over the years. I stopped doing sketches or outlines before my paintings, and I allowed myself to be free. I started to break down the walls of the letters themselves. First I started to make the letters transparent, and pile them on top of one another, then I took them out of their traditional linear format. In this process I began to see shapes emerging that were compelling to me. I started to focus on those shapes and through them attempted to re-construct a letterform in my mind. As this process continued the work became more and more abstract, and I stopped treating the subjects of my paintings as objects, but began to see them as ideas. The movement and form became more important to me than seeing anything known in the painting.

This idea has been guiding my eye and my hand for the past several years, and continues to be the springboard from which I approach my work.