Laguna College of Art + Design

My paintings are a roadmap to the different ways I have found healing within my life.

Finding connections to external stimuli, such as the sun, gave me the strength to go inwards.

While examining my own inner workings, I became ready to extend myself to others more

deeply. Painting has become an extension of how I understand the world around me.

My thesis artwork is centered around my love of the sunlight that falls on the

landscapes of my hometown, that nourishes my beloved cactus that lives in my front yard,

and illuminates the objects I find while scouring the beach. These muses lead me back into a

connection with myself. I have made paintings that display radiating checkerboard patterns,

which serve as a language for talking about differences in how people think. My thesis work

also includes paintings and quilts that record the lost and found objects that I have collected

on the coast.

Some of my paintings also explore an internal connection with the self that can

sometimes feel external. These paintings are related to my feeling of separation between who

I once was and who I am today. The paintings feature two iterations of the same person, to

symbolize past and present versions of themselves. The contrast between the abuse and the

benevolent tenderness I have experienced in my life sometimes leaves me feeling like these

two experiences could not have both existed within the same person. These paintings focus

on a feeling of disconnection and the recognition that a person will always in some way carry

the burdens of the past.