I was (still am) deeply sensitive and a voracious reader of science fiction, fantasy, and gothic horror. I’m also from a mixed-race family, of Black and Japanese descent. My work uses my mother’s streamlined Buddhism (which says to look to nature as the highest wisdom) and the language of literary device to develop a particular ideography. Characters and symbology from family photographs, natural history, and personal memory are recast into carefully constructed tableaus. These are stills from a superstitious mythology with imagined implications on the shared psychic reality of myself and my family. Paintings, videos, or objects are meant to seek clarity on a question I have about my love life, retroactively soothe a grandparent’s trauma, or guide a loved one through forthcoming conflict.

My work takes the form of figurative painting, stop-motion animation, multimedia installation, and performance. High-saturation collage work is combined with drawing and painting to tell a series of narratives that are ultimately apart of one story. This story is about time travel and the chaotic force of love.