Artist Statement

My work explores the relationship between everyday life, family, and identity—and how lineage shapes who we are. Additionally, how inherited memory and culture passed through people, families and communities shapes us both consciously and unconsciously. I ask: how much of our aspirations, interests and decisions are truly our own, and how much has been carried across generations? Is our existence a continuation of our ancestors’ dreams? To exist as the gift of those choices made before us feels both beautiful and divine.

I am interested less in the idea of a specific journey with a set ideal of who to be and more in the choices—both our own and those carried across lifetimes—that shape who we are. Even in the smallest decisions—what we wear, where we go, what we reach for—lineage is always present.

Through portraiture, I depict everyday individuals in my community with reverence, highlighting beauty and illuminating those often misrepresented or overlooked in society. Each portrait celebrates the individual’s presence in the moment, while reflecting the continuity of ancestry.

I center the eyes as a portal to the soul, using gradients, color, ornamental pattern, and halo-like forms to evoke spiritual depth and generational continuity. Working primarily in painting, I incorporate materials such as beaded embroidery and fabric to introduce texture, adornment, and cultural memory into the painted surface, creating a space where ancestry and lived experience meet.

Through this work, I invite viewers to reflect on their own relationship to ancestry—what has been carried, what has been chosen, and what continues forward. In this way, each figure exists as both a continuation and a beginning, holding the past while moving toward what is still becoming.