I was born in Honolulu in 1967. I graduated with a BFA from the University of Hawaii in 1991. After graduating I moved into a meditation Ashram in upstate New York and lived there for 2 and 1/2 years. During that time I stopped painting and washed dishes, mopped floors and did other monastic activities. I moved to New York City in 1994 and returned to painting and school, recieving an MFA from Pratt Inst in 1998.

13 years after I painted my classmate Gerald posing with this lion, an anonymous Saudi oil princess bought the painting. I was very surprised. I think the appeal must have been the Assyrian lion or the Ishtar Gate. Maybe it was the nudity I’m not totally sure, but it did pay the rent.

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