STATEment

I am a painter interested in the intersection of landscape and abstraction, and how these artistic conventions can be employed to explore themes of mental illness, trauma, and resilience. Fire is a symbol that runs throughout my body of work, as it often feels as though our world is both literally and metaphorically burning down. I’m also interested in the cycles of growth and destruction that exist in our natural world. While forest fires are brutally destructive, they also serve a purpose in maintaining balance in the ecosystem- they make room for new life.

I seek to explore personal and familial narratives in addition to those on the societal scale. I have watched family members struggle with debilitating mental health challenges for years, and this body of work has been a way to process, and make sense of that trauma. While my work explores heavy themes, it is important to me to maintain a sense of playfulness. The colorful palette, flattened sense of space, and deliberately neat and controlled paint application give the work an unexpected sense of lightness. The work feels whimsical at first glance. I am thinking about the idea of concealing . Humans have a tendency to cover up our problems, and to attempt to present a polished version of ourselves to the outside world. While progress has been made, there is still an incredible amount of stigma surrounding mental illness. I want the work to evoke this idea of masking.