Islands evoke the fantasy of escape for some, but for me, having lived on Maui for over thirty years, these islands fill me with a deep sense of home. When creating this body of work, I wanted to unabashedly embrace the themes of nature, islands, and water, erasing any prejudice I might have that contemporary art can’t speak of lush dreams. This work aims to offer the viewer a range of emotions inside these fantastical landscapes, from the meditative to the adventurous.

Exuberant joy is easy to paint; bright colors remind us of the crescendo moments in our lives, but here, by choosing earth tones, I am speaking to a deeper, more internal joy. Even as the imagery is mysterious and fanciful, these wondrous scenes remain strangely familiar.