Growing up, I had always felt an emptiness within myself. This seclusion lead me to go inward and taught me to be more observant of the world around me. Something I learned is the permanence and ever-changing use of language that we all are a part of. I realize this admiration of language was a gift placed into my life that guided me to integrate my personal perspective out into the world.
My approach is to merge the genres of portraiture and still life through the use of collage and paint. Visually, my paintings reveal an exploration of color, texture, and a combination of flat and representational imagery.
For my process, I research idioms, or common phrases in the English language and incorporate them as titles for my paintings. These idioms challenge my imagination and inspire playful scenes in my mind where I merge myself and my surroundings into a specific context. These scenes become my personal interpretation of what the idiom means to me, and help me understand how my surroundings alter the way I perceive myself and the world around me. As a reference image for my paintings, I create digital collages where I experiment with color, scale, and placement.
My artwork is heavily influenced by the Pop Art movement, and the American figurative painter Joan Brown. Just like Brown, I integrate vibrant color, explore the physicality of paint through impasto, and involve myself and my surroundings as the subject matter for my pieces. In relation to the Pop Art movement, I use symbols and icons to grab the viewer’s attention and combine it with a graphic style and saturated palette. I merge the combination of all these elements as a way to express my perspective in a unique and meaningful way.
