Artist Statement

My work is based on my personal experiences with childhood trauma and its effects on the quality of our lives if we don’t embark on a healing journey. Through my art, I want to raise awareness about mental health, the importance of attention to bodily sensations, and how various emotions and triggers are processed. The themes I explore, among others, are feelings of fear and unworthiness during interactions with others, which most often mirror our early interactions with adults who mishandled or unvalidated us.

I create predominantly self-portraiture images placed in a surreal and moody environment. The surreal worlds I develop are a form of escapism from reality to safely process challenging situations like abandonment and bullying. To bring these painful thoughts to life, I sometimes use dark and rusty colors to symbolize overwhelming introspections and depression. In some images, I introduce textures to give the environment a feel of decay as a reflection of the degradation of the human being after years of suffering. The surreal elements help to emphasize the story in a more absurd way, making it sometimes more digestible and other times hard to look at and, therefore, memorable.

I strongly believe that it is important to understand why we sometimes feel emotions that overwhelm us and stop us from following our intuition. Fear of speaking up for ourselves, people-pleasing, fear of failing, and so much more are mostly wounds developed in childhood. It is learned behavior that keeps us safe as we grow up in an unsafe environment. We might learn that some feelings are wrong, so we subconsciously practice suppressing them. I want to connect with the viewers through my art, let them know that they are not alone and inspire them to look deeper into themselves and further investigate the behavior that harms them. I aim to empower them to start healing their old wounds and allow themselves to be reborn from the ashes of their past selves.