wcroce

I’ve always been fascinated by decay.Not in the icky sense, but in the natural sense.
As a young boy growing up in the Catskills, nature ruled. Rusted cars enchained by vines and shrubbery, dilapidated and long-forgotten houses...these were not hard to find, and I always wondered about their stories, and that now nobody cared and nature was left to do what it does, and it was all still beautiful. My process of creating a work of art involves scratching, erasing, layering and generally building up a kind of “history” in the piece. Though not quite decay it evokes the relentless passage of time.

I received my BFA from Pratt Institute.
I spent a lot of time there drawing the human figure, something that to this day I enjoy and never tire of, and consider an important part of keeping my skills sharp. Much of my work, regardless of medium, contains a figurative aspect.

I love drawing and painting faces. I am often asked if they are portraits of specific people. They are not. They are more like archetypes - portraying struggle, sometimes anger and sometimes decay.