In repetition there is order and structure, but also endless variation. By trying to create a perfect mark by hand, its individuality and imperfections become more and more apparent. I combine this distinctive mark with that of the printed mark to contrast their inherent natures and serve as visual reminders of a struggle to balance two realities.

My recent work suggests examination of manufactured, misplaced and inadequate constructs. These constructs are often the byproduct of the search for Utopias that, in fact, cannot be assembled in the physical or material world. Time, recollection and longing are collapsed within my work, illuminating the irrationality of invented utopias and locating the site of physical presence in time and space.

I use photographs as mnemonic tools to visually reenter previously visited places within my painting practice. The act of painting attempts to domesticate these photographs and liberate the preexisting compositional elements of line, shape and pattern for visual consumption.

My work converges imagery and content to explore my emotional journey living as a biracial, mixed race, and multicultural individual in America. The imagery I am creating visually symbolizes and synthesizes my emotional space, which is disjointed and uncomfortable. This emotional response stems from feeling out of place in a country that has a clear racial divide and is reinforced by not fitting into one racial box. The content of my work is mostly driven by personal narrative, addressing my insecurities, vulnerabilities, and obsessions.

My recent work has been a visual reflection of the ever-changing relationship between the natural world and the world of human influence. The curved lines and blurred contours of natural forms encounter the sharp geometry and mechanical repetition of industry and calculation. Whether in conflict or harmony, these works emphasize the power struggles and symbiotic resting places between two worlds.

My recent work fuses elements of realism with the language of contemporary art and street culture. The images are drawn from scenes I find in my daily life while walking the streets of Brooklyn. They are inspired by marks people have left on the city: discarded objects, wheatpaste posters, and graffiti. In the ever-changing, gritty landscape of New York, one moment is captured. As in a collaboration with the city, my voice joins the layered conversation of street art and culture.

The work I make stems from my need to explore my relationship to order and power. I attempt to investigate my exertion of control over disorderly forces. I create indeterminate marks and insist imagery will emerge, and that a narrative exists.

The canvas is my surface on which to play around, a place where I can build terrains to explore or secluded rooms to occupy and decorate, where I can construct spaces, tear them back down, and shove things into each other to see what happens. I watch the paintings grow as images pile up and erode away.

My paintings could be considered documentation of my life, using friends and acquaintances as subjects. In preparation for painting I take hundreds of photographs, either from costumed or candid performances. I focus on unique beauty and desire. One moment someone can look stunning, and vulnerable and awkward in the next. An expression can be loaded, seeming euphoric, complacent, orgasmic, hysterical, and agonized all at once. While viewers might not know the subject personally, they can relate, empathize, or fantasize with the presented human image.

My dependence on the visual world began when I lost much of my hearing through spinal meningitis at two years of age. This loss was a blessing in disguise as I learned to depend on body language and reading lips to communicate. So, from my youngest days, I became sensitive to the people around me and the unspoken language revealed through compositions of the human body.