My paintings are a cathartic endeavor. The paintings look funny, but I am constantly questioning my own privilege and upbringing to critically reassess what I have been taught. Humor is used in these paintings to lighten the load of larger topics, such as access to clean water, patriarchal masculinity, capitalism, and climate change. Often the paintings are autobiographical and include domestic objects and patterns from textiles in my life. Frequently, dogs appear as imagined characters in the work; they are used as stand-ins to reference ideas about human behavior. My intention is for the people, animals, and objects in the paintings to all exist in the same painted world, but also to critique the world we inhabit.