In an era marked by collective mourning on both a global and personal scale, my work aims to facilitate the grieving process. Through painting, I examine the past in a potentially futile attempt to understand the ever-evolving present. My work is informed by family archives such as old photographs and catholic devotional imagery heavily altered to create fictional narratives. By utilizing bold colors and shapes, I am able to simultaneously highlight and abstract the content of each family artifact. Abstract memories are translated onto a larger scale and reinterpreted in a contemporary context. Each large-scale composition represents a pocket universe featuring biblical references, cultural motifs, organic shapes, and apocalyptic imagery. In isolation, I cope with grief by simultaneously celebrating and mourning the loss of cultural systems and interpersonal relationships that have shaped my identity, worldview, and self-perception.
