My figurative oil portraits explore and interrogate inner thoughts and nostalgia. My paintings create a space within memory; sheltered by walls of repetitive thought and illuminated by vivid colors. I reach for a feeling, thought, or place in time, and translate it into an image that encapsulates a time in my life. My figurative oil paintings are born from increasingly saturated underpaintings that are alive, mimicking moments of fluorescence in nature. My works explore the complexity of youth, growth, and the emotions that come with the somewhat forceful change of maturity. Lost in thought, caught in a web of emotions, my subjects lie unaware of the surrounding real world. Face and body still as the rhythm of the world moves around them. Surroundings fade into a void-like space.

I’ve always thought of the process of art as problem solving, which jives with my reason for creating. When I create images of intense emotion, I like to think of it as making something beautiful out of something difficult. This is where art transcends the act of making and becomes something more. 

Falling, an oil painting I created in 2024, reached the point of completion but didn’t feel final. It didn’t have the same feeling as my other paintings; it lacked emotion, complexity, and the cinematic perspective I like to employ. After months of work, I decided to start over. I rotated the canvas and projected a new image on top of the old. The new image became a creation of shapes and colors that felt like a puzzle, as I worked to understand the image as it laid on top of the previous painting. The act of creating something beautiful on top of something less became a method that I’ve continued in my current practice.

Lately, I’ve found it difficult to paint because of the stress of change in every part of life. I’ve felt a need for justification to allow myself to enjoy painting. My reinvigorated painting practice satisfies my reason to create.