Artist Statement

We all put on facades and are pushed to conform to ideals of the society around us. As a result, my artwork continues to evolve and change according to my influences and life experiences. My work focuses on series of narrative figures done in oil or acrylic, usually with mixed media, on a variety of surface materials.

In my past work, I have envisioned myself as the heroine or victim of constrained and perplexing narratives. This personal exploration of identity politics in my series Color Buy Number has lead me to research other types of portrait profiling. Through a series of Steam Punk paintings, I indulge nostalgic fantasies of the industrial revolution and the Victorian era. In my Submerged series, I wrestle with the idea of transparency and my political divergences from my family by portraying overly saturated images of them underwater. I have also undertaken a series of female portraits called Heroine Addicts to add my voice to today’s growing chorus of empowered women’s movements. The current series I am working on, Americans, illustrates the instability of the immigrant identity, for whom the current American dream is more like a nightmare where neither here nor there feels quite like home.

While these ideas may seem somewhat varied, they all underscore two conflicting elements: my concerns for humanity and the environment today, and my hopes for a more brilliant tomorrow.