Artist Statement

Everyone creates a safe place where they can feel at ease; for me—like many others—that place is home. My work consists of portraits and interior spaces of my home featuring my loved ones. I want the viewer to sense a casual exchange that has occurred between the artist and the subject. During my time in quarantine, I have learned to appreciate the environment and people that surround me. I have found fulfillment by turning mundane environments into quiet and immersive spaces.

 In this work, I create a quiet and comforting space by using light and color to depict familiar spaces of my life as having visual beauty. I achieve this by emphasizing the steady movement of light in the composition and by using a limited color palette in some of my paintings. I seek to give more spatial depth and interest to my paintings by merging different areas of my home into one. I also want to give hints of the subject’s interests and personality by including objects of importance to the individual.

My work builds on formal tactics seen in the work of Edouard Vuillard, Susan Lichtman, and Sangram Majumdar. Vuillard's compositions include interesting placement and treatment of pattern; his use of color is something I also consider in my paintings. Lichtman's clever use of a limited color palette simplified flattening of the form, and the close value relationships in her paintings have all greatly impacted my approach. And, in Sangram Majumdar's early work, I appreciate how he constructs his compositions and his ability to make large flat areas in his painting interesting through the use of hue shift and texture.

This pandemic has given me the opportunity to connect with my loved ones on a deeper level because I tended to spend the of my most time with them. This series is driven by the love for my family and the space we share. I want to show the people that I connect in a domestic setting by encompassing them within their space and have them bask in the moment of comfort. What interests me is the relationship between a person and their intimate surroundings can convey insight into who the person is, whether it’s on an intuitive level or a place from a deep understanding