My interest is in creating images of freedom. But are we free? Or are we being violated? Rather than depicting people quietly going about their business, having peaceful family time with no one bothering them, I find it much bolder and more interesting to show the opposite: oppression, tyranny, violence. To achieve this, I use monoprint to give

fresh color to the background of my work. I use relief prints to give the darkness and the details.

Art is not meant to be merely decorative. It can be a question or an argument or a proposal or a challenge. Poking fun is an effective way to deal with horrific events like the growth of the police state under our very noses, which is the focus of this series of prints. So six oversized red-light cameras at one peaceful intersection preen and peer down like tall, odd birds.

I also pay homage to artists who celebrate the birthday of George Orwell, who so deviously depicted a total surveillance state, by placing birthday hats on cameras all over town.

In another print, cameras perch against
a reddening fiery sky. Cameras watch us watching them, and in the lens we stare back and thumb our noses. Cameras can be found in many unusual places.

But they aren’t all bad: a camera is dressed like a hawk to capture and show us what it feels like to fly like a buzzard.

Moving forward, I will expand on using ridicule

as a means to depict the folly of our

modern police state and our complacency with it.

I want my art to debate the question, how much worse will it get?