My intuition tells me to look onwards, yet I am constantly faced with an uncertain future to contend with.
By blurring lines between natural and urban landscapes, I negotiate public and private spaces in an attempt to question our everyday environment and progress. I explore the consumerist and reification qualities of California cultures, subcultures and appropriation of counter-cultures while simultaneously exploring the curiosities of being human amid precarious times.
I am interested in exploring California cultural elements of skateboarding, surfing and graffiti culture, alongside a personal connection to the landscape, organic matter and entanglements of consciousness. My work approaches the painting world in a phenomenological way. Shifts of scale, ambiguity, and temporality are central themes of my work. I’m interested in having viewers explore the skatepark as if traversing through a landscape. Earth excavations and emptiness, natural and artificial, built landscape and natural landscape, alienation and existential strangeness are dualities I wish to investigate in my practice.
I received a Bachelor’s in Art from the University of California Santa Barbara, and was recently accepted and withdrew from a Masters in Fine Art Program from the University of London, Goldsmiths after realizing the program was not sufficient towards my goals as an artist in the midst of COVID-19.
Throughout my artistic career I have exhibited at dozens of public art affairs and sold to private collections across the globe.
I have volunteered for numerous nonprofits throughout southern California, accumulating hundreds of volunteer hours where I teach art lessons to children, young adults, and adults with disabilities; alongside teaching special education students within my local school district. I often find the satisfaction of donating my work and sharing techniques more rewarding than paid commissioned pieces.
Social engagement is an emphasis within my painting and drawing practice, and this has led me to found the Urban Art Scholarship, where I award $350 to a student based on their art portfolio and essay on the contribution of art within the community.
I envision a creative and collective future.