OAKMILLE

I became an artist before I understood why I needed to. A college ruled notebook was the first canvas I felt fully expressive on while illustrating sentiments I didn’t have language for yet. I sketched the moments of tension between who I was becoming and who I was expected to be.

That habit never left me, it just got more honest. Every piece I make now starts the same way: I sit with a feeling until it has a shape or I have a flash of a scene in my head that perfectly describes a reckoning. Sometimes the shapes are peaceful. More often it's layers of duality, unrest, vulnerability and exhaustion sharing the same canvas, because all of those things are true at once. I'm not interested in painting a version of emotion that's easy to compartmentalize. I want the viewer to recognize themselves in the discomfort as much as the certainty.

Moving from East Oakland to Columbus gave me an extended vocabulary for my work. Migration, memory, and the question of what you carry with you versus what you leave behind. My debut collection, Turbulent Journeys, was my first attempt to name that thread out loud: the idea that life is a series of crossings, and that reflection is how we both survive and regard them. Everything I've made since, from gallery walls to an album cover, has been illustrations of the same internal moments of honesty. Introspection saved me, and I think it can do the same for whoever is standing in front of the canvas.