Graduate from the BFA Painting department at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2025.
Statement:
The matter I paint is an ode to my sensitive nature. I find myself quite vulnerable and quiet in my practice, focusing on a moment of feeling and thinking more introspectively since an early age. My early beginnings as a sensitive person led to two of my practices: listening and observing. I listen to those around me and hear grandeur stories that excite me —life experiences and self-assurance. I also observe roaring landscapes, how people communicate, the text in a book, the excitement of dance and rythm, vibrations of color and the past. My practice is memorializing these moments as a way of processing time. It is the flow of time that makes me curious about myself and inspires me to create.
I have found my voice through art and my way of communicating. I can speak because I can make it. I like to experiment with the materials I use in my paintings, from canvas and paper to wood and metal. To create something physical is my struggle with the intangible. The intangible to me is the pull we feel toward one another, a sense of knowing without really knowing. This is essential to my functionality as a creator, questioner, and expressionist.
Oil paint is a way for me to connect my body by loading a paintbrush with all that it holds onto a surface of my making. It is a form of communication that transcends language and allows me to express my thoughts on theories, time, desire, and ways to communicate within myself. My art-making reflects my innermost thoughts and emotions that manifest themselves on surfaces through my hand. Once I feel that spark of inspiration, I paint, and my body and mind work together to create something and see it through. Like my body, my paintings are created through many layers of directions, compositions, textures, and colors. They are forever paintings, constantly being touched and unable to remain a certain way for long. My paintings have lived through many stages before they found a sense of harmony within themselves or with other works of mine. I am fascinated by capturing moments in time and holding onto them for reflection. Once a painting is complete, it is time to grieve it and move forward, having processed its realization in an image.
When I create a painting that captures a fleeting moment, I work with haste, riding the thrill of a spark until it is absolute. The quickness of gestures and swift swipes of paint on a surface show my eagerness and love for the medium. I work intuitively and impulsively to create an image, taking into account all that I am feeling at that moment. I find the challenge of problem-solving through experimentation thrilling. When I observe the world around me and listen to it, I feel as though I can look closer at my work. It reminds me of how many layers of incoherent scratch build up a clear, digestible image, just like the intangible notions of feeling finally clicking after processing them.
My sincerity comes from working imperfectly, as I often don’t follow the traditional rules of painting, such as thick over thin layers, that secure its permanence. It is to enjoy for a while, whether or not it holds up to the years beyond us. I always make sure that in areas of my paintings, I can see their history, like looking through a window to its heart. With that, my paintings speak for themselves, somewhere between abstract expressionism and figurative narration. It is the smaller things I enjoy most and become inspired by, like feeling my legs against a bedsheet, questioning absurd movies, wrapping a gift, looking at a stream, and spilling water on my blouse. This is what it’s all about for me—my relation to these experiences and their translation through my hand. I want to continue to explore this curiosity about time and moments manifesting in paintings.