Philosophy of Language & Philosophy of Art
Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophy at McGill University, painter, filmmaker, designer.
About Me
People turn to the visual arts for a variety of reasons. I grew up in a family of artists, surrounded, prenatally it seems, by creative types arguing, exhibiting, discussing art, process, meaning, colour, concept, and representation. What I gleaned from this was that pluralism has supreme currency. That is not to say all art is good or correct or meaningful, but that there is not a single correct path towards meaning.
It is no coincidence that my disciplinary focus is “Irrealism,” the area of philosophy that welcomes a plurality of self-created worlds. However, although this may seem paradoxical to some, I am also a neo-Cartesian scientific realist. We do what we can despite being mired in our biological natures. In the world of science one assumes that the objects one studies do exist.
As a philosopher I have a multi-disciplinary background in both philosophy and linguistics. As an artist, I exhibit in one-man and group gallery shows, I am an art director in the film industry, recently at HBO (The Last of Us) and Disney+.
I am also a filmmaker, co-president of the company Lady Liberty Pictures Inc., and a co-author and co-illustrator of a children’s book series, Soso and Frieda.
On left: "a thing is not a thing" (2002)
Please visit my other websites under the LINKS tab above right.
My doctoral supervisors at McGill are Ian Gold (philosophy) and Brendan Gillon (linguistics). My Masters is in Philosophy from the Université de Montréal, where my thesis, "Fictions in Art and Science,” was written under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Marquis.
Just as my painting reflects the fields of philosophy, language and art, I am drawn academically to how these fields influence each other. Specifically, I am influenced by the linguists Noam Chomsky, Norbert Hornstein, Brendan Gillon, and Paul Pietroski and by the philosophers James McGilvray, Nelson Goodman and Catherine Z. Elgin.
On right: "Portofino Harbour" (2002)
I call my work as a painter “Irrealist”.
Much of my work is landscapes and cityscapes and I prefer to work outdoors than to paint in the studio. However, many of my projects are abstract, semi-abstract or self-referential lettrist works. I see paintings as experiments in the philosophy and psychology of meaning.
On left: "Cold Morning in Montréal" (2001)