Artist Statement

I have always been fascinated by self-documentation. Despite being half the population, women rarely have control over their own narratives. Through painting myself, I retake agency over my visibility. My narratives are exhumed from my lived experiences of childhood abuse, addiction, Christian nationalism, queerness, gender dynamics, girlhood, and technology. I am an atheist fascinated by religion with the picture-perfect happy childhood; my dad had a mental break, dragging my family through his homelessness, jail, stalking, rehab, thousands spent on plastic surgery, and over a million on alcohol. I use humor and irony to portray dark subjects in a way that feels true to myself. I am in conversation with a lineage of women and queer artists, including Robin Walker Kimmerer, Frida Kahlo, Anna Weyant, Sasha Gordon, Kent Monkman, and Kehinde Wiley. I’m inspired by the way they reinvent symbols, art history, and the figure to create political and personal narratives.

I am interested in how faith shapes power, gender roles, and moral authority. My work challenges the assumption that meaning must originate from belief, proposing instead that wonder can exist through nature, science, and human connection. When I begin a painting, I think like a puppet master, arranging each element with intention.

Painting is a form of psychological, philosophical, and art historical inquiry as much as it is aesthetics. Utilizing representation, saturated color, pattern, and meticulous detail, I fabricate a fictional Colorado, built from childhood memories, family history, and the romanticized imagery of the American West. My research in mythology and anthropology reshaped how I think about the land, authority, and inheritance.