Bio

“My figurative work draws on my lived experience as a trans, Buddhist, neurodiverse educator. It aims to elevate people living under the building pressure of Christo-Facism, and to celebrate their power and joy through a queer, neurodiverse lens. I draw humbly on the influence of artists such as Kehinde Wiley, whose portrait subjects, largely young Black men, exist both inside and outside of their filigree context as the inheritors of the worst cruelties of empire building. Wiley imagines a world where his subjects become the center of visual power. I aspire to extend these efforts of artists focusing on socially transformative portrait work.

My subjects are meant to feel porous and buoyant. I paint the space they occupy to be an extension of their person, and then give back from their bodies into the field of color. The concept of Indra’s Web has influenced the way I conceptualize the human form. A web of infinite gems with infinite facets, each facet reflecting another gem around it. Reflections of reflections of reflections. I look for reflected light sources, especially against vibrant surfaces, to further inter-cut the differentiation between subject and space. Theatrical set design, 90s commercial art, Japanese printmaking, and illustrators such as Arthur Rackham have all influenced my use of line and layering to flatten space and create an intimacy that might make the viewer feel like they’re alone with the subject or subjects, weightless in a field of movement and color, while their attention focuses fully on a moment of rebellious existence.

I paint the way I perceive, which is inseparable from my experience as a neurodiverse person. My eyes dart around a space and assemble it in parts, then hold them in a spillway of memory until they slip away. Color is incredibly vibrant to me. The world dissolves around the edges of my perception. I am fascinated by blind spots and inconsistencies in our human perception, love to dive deeply for hidden colors, undertones, and reflections hidden in my subjects. To amplify sparks of joy, light, and color until we can sense them again. Just as my choice of subjects aims to bring appreciation to mundane, everyday lives of marginalized people.

I see genuine moments of happiness as resistance. My community and I, we steal joy like looters. We make our own spaces, our own families, our own culture, and our own meaning because these things aren’t provided for us. My practice as a painter grew out of a need to dwell in that joy like a physical space. To pull life from the air, as an act of rebellion. The world wants us to disappear, but we refuse to. Visibility is activism.

Young queer people have lived too long without elders to look up to, having lost a generation to the mismanagement of the AIDS crisis. The news cycle portrays the remains of us as mutilated and pining. I crave the time and support to pursue an ambitious series of larger-than-life portraits focused specifically on visibly queer elders. Portraits are capable of changing the way we frame humanity and society. Who do we allow to be seen? What light do we see them portrayed in? Those are powerful forces. I want to scream my response to the public narrative of queerness, try to wrestle control away from people who believe we are degenerate.”