My work explores my healing process after experiencing tremendous loss and upheaval in my life.
In 2020, I watched my brother disappear into the elusive haze of schizophrenia. With strong forces against me, I wasn’t able to help him and instead I started to paint. As I witnessed him fragment into pieces, it was through the act of creation I realized the parts of myself that had been sequestered.
My work is a connection to my higher power and spirit. My past experiences and healing inform each piece through the act of finally trusting myself. Creating has become a somatic experience where I realize the differences between fine line and large brush work, as well as differences in texture. Each layer is an opportunity to respond to what comes up, and offers space to choose between heavy body and high flow acrylics, wax or oil pastels, or paint markers. It is practice in trust, chance and patience. The process also serves as an attempt to understand the nonsense that is psychosis. When psychosis took my brother, I used to imagine his soul lived in a dark pit full of tiny stars. It was: The Void. To this day, I hope to find him and pull him out. Now, as I paint visions of chaos and cosmic colors, I’ve started to imagine him living in these paintings. They are not as damning as the dark void I used to see.
My work is a connection to my higher power and spirit. My past experiences and healing inform each piece through the act of finally trusting myself. Creating has become a somatic experience where I realize the differences between fine line and large brush work, as well as differences in texture. Each layer is an opportunity to respond to what comes up, and offers space to choose between heavy body and high flow acrylics, wax or oil pastels, or paint markers. It is practice in trust, chance and patience. The process also serves as an attempt to understand the nonsense that is psychosis. When psychosis took my brother, I used to imagine his soul lived in a dark pit full of tiny stars. It was: The Void. To this day, I hope to find him and pull him out. Now, as I paint visions of chaos and cosmic colors, I’ve started to imagine him living in these paintings. They are not as damning as the dark void I used to see.