My work is mixed media collage combining found images and/or painted backgrounds, with pencil drawing and watercolour. The drawn elements are always the key focus of the work whereas the found imagery creates background and context. I emphasize the drawings by utilizing watercolour or acrylic washes but the pencil marks are always clear which, for me, echo the rudimentary creative form I used throughout my childhood. Using this technique, the central images seem somehow ghostlike and ethereal and create a separation of the object from its’ environment.

This show reflects and is inspired by my mental health journey, tracing trauma trailheads from my early youth through my exploration of the Internal Family Systems therapy paradigm. The work speaks to the loneliness and isolation as a queer child in a challenging family environment. I recast memories, emotions, and internal personalities as ghostly visions and dark fables. Familiar figures, like the chilling visage of a scarecrow or a mangy rat, stand as concrete examples of emotions and responses.

Over the years Jay has had the pleasure of exhibiting his work both solo and with his siblings in group shows that often included collaborative creativity. The latter has been an inspiration that has reinvigorated his joy in making art.

Jay lives in an ancient house in New Westminster that overlooks a cemetery. He shares his life with his husband, along with a painfully adorable rescue pup, and ghosts too numerous to mention (including a fat old tabby cat).