My paintings illustrate my autobiography. They portray the relationships between me, my family, and chosen family and the touchpoints we’ve shared. These entangled elements are the atomic units of who I am, where I’ve been, and where I am going.

My mark making considers the desires of my subjects. In depicting the people I’m most fortunate to know, I honor their vision of themselves as my loved ones. The images I use to create range from life studies, staged and candid photo shoots, drawings, and mother-approved images.

This approach to self-portraiture requires that the artist and subject negotiate boundaries and terms. The spaces are shaped by the fashion, foods, and furniture of familiar settings. The environments are vital to the cohesion of the painting; the interiors are unfolded to ensure the ground is visible, rooting figures firmly, and often barefoot, in their habitat. My compositions show contemporary life through the safety of homes and invitation-only environments. My presence guides, haunts, and contextualizes these settings and interactions by converting them into self-portraits.