You’re not always going to get what you want or what you need and that’s not because you didn’t try hard enough or because you were in the right place at the right time, that’s just the way it works sometimes.

I wanted to create portraits of various St. Edward’s students focusing on form and fluidity of descriptive line. In these portraits, I capitalized on facial features but left out the eyes.

I understood the fear he faced during the Second World War and the hurt he felt when critics didn’t like his art and the sorrow he dealt with when he sliced open the insides of his forearms in his New York studio. I understood all of it.