Statement

My work searches for the space between the familiar and the uncanny, where memories, emotions, and figments melt into a big pot of dreamy soup. Taking inspiration from surrealism, I produce visual spaces that elicit a sense of anemoia. My paintings channel moments that are known but remain elusive. The stage between being conscious and unconscious, between dreams and reality. Art is a way for me to comprehend the universe's chaos. How something incomprehensible organized itself, giving birth to life. I similarly organize my ideas by creating an illusion through paint, manipulating it to evoke light, shadow, and form. My work invites viewers to confront their own rationalism. To question what is real, what is remembered, and what is imagined.

Bio  

For as long as I can remember, I have lived the tangible cycle of breathing, eating, sleeping, and living. But what about the intangible, the buried memories before birth? The things we can’t remember, like a lost and forgotten dream. These ideas constantly prod my existence, compelling me to create. 

In 2003, I was born in the small town of Newton, Iowa, and soon moved to an even smaller town named Runnells. From a young age, I have always tried to escape reality one way or another. Luckily, growing up in the vast rural plains of Iowa made it easy. Although I have always been a natural extrovert, I’ve instinctively known that times of solitude were mandatory. This is where I began to nurture my love for creating things. Whether it was creating costumes to dress up as my favorite movie characters or taping a tube to a flashlight to make a lightsaber. I’ve always found a way to satisfy that itch to animate my ideas. One of my earliest memories was watching my grandpa draw my favorite cartoons. After bargaining with him every time he tried to stop drawing, I somehow persuaded him to draw just one more. This is where my obsession with rendering images was born. 

Since then, I have continued to investigate these hidden spaces as a student at Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, California. There, I study Drawing and Painting, taking inspiration from surrealism and the unconscious. Striving to invite others into their own subconscious through imagery that is as familiar as it is mysterious.