My recent paintings consist of the types of things I used to draw in the margins of my
notebooks in middle school. Butterflies, rainbows, shooting stars, caricature self-portraits, fruits
and flowers with human faces. The same motif images appear again and again like a cast
recurring characters placed in different settings and situations. The process of painting involves
intuitive, playful placement of objects, like arranging souvenirs on a shelf. Images are
interlocked like pieces in a puzzle. Securely bound within the borders of the rectangular panel,
barely-touching bits and pieces appear to float in midair on soft matte backgrounds.
I approach painting with both intuition and organization in mind, allowing myself to
make silly or childlike decisions while simultaneously prioritizing visual balance. The process is
playful and additive, like decorating a cake, or furnishing a dollhouse. Anthropomorphized
fruits, flowers, and butterflies are positioned so their unmoving eyes tell the story.
In this body of work, bugs, fruits, and flower-figures grapple with certain hard-to-
describe human feelings, relating to comfort, anxiety, love, and grief. Ambiguous emotions are
manifested in glossy eyes and half-smiles. A moth seems content to be cradled between orchid
blooms at midnight. In the morning, a rose with a knotted stem is crying just because she felt
like crying, as the butterfly below avoids eye contact. At sunset, sweaty lemons pose
impatiently in their bowl, stealing sideways glances and gritting their teeth.
This work is inspired by big, heavy feelings and their mysterious origins—the sudden
pangs of anxiety the strike in childhood, as well as the moments of abundance and bliss.
Ultimately in these paintings I seek to find order in chaos, joy in mess, and humor in tragedy.