Reflections

Series. Acrylic and oil on masonite. 2024.

Abstract

Through my Reflections series of mixed media paintings, I approach coping with struggle, doubt, anxiety, and loneliness. This often results in art that relates just as much to healing and joy. My understanding is that maybe those feelings which we find difficult are just as precious and worthy of our attention as the more pleasant ones, and that they make the pleasant ones more potent. This philosophy directs my body of work, which takes on contemplative figures lost in complex representational scenes and moments of abstraction. I think that, although I am painting myself in this series, my attention is not focused on my image but rather the situation I exist in and the relationship between layers of space that collide and overlap against the same flat plane. By blurring the lines between what is inside and what is outside, what is real and what is felt, and what is rendered and what is suggested, I try to capture moments in time when I recognize the act and sensation of being alive in all its strangeness. I believe viewers could consider these works not as offering the main question “who is this person?” but rather “what are they thinking?”