I lived in Rome 8 years, painting still life as visionary cities, then placing giant figures inspired by Roman monuments in them. Scale dislocations and foreshortening allow cubist contradictions - forms projecting into space as shapes stack up on the picture-plane.
My Fulbright project to study depictions of saints and apply their strange fusion of the neurotic and sublime to portraiture - led to Arcimboldo-inspired 'criptosanti' and eventually 'headworks,' architectural headresses implicating the stuff of thought.
More recent work has been inspired by Atlantic City, where I lived 4 years. It's surprisingly poetic vistas recall Antonioni, while its small scale sculptural quality, Rome - though unlike the gravity of The Eternal City, irony is ever-present in an R. Crumb way.
I also enjoy more straightforward perceptual painting, mostly portraits and still lifes.