Page 48 - Winter Issue

Your work reflects the complexities of family and history. How do you balance honoring your past while
also forging your own identity through your art?
The past informs the present, which informs the future, which also informs the present, which also informs the past.
These relationships are fascinating and complicated and rich and valuable, but they can start being a problem when
you become so fixated on one that you begin to lose sight of the others. Sometimes I feel very comfortable healthily
managing these perspectives, but it’s also true that it's very easy to lose myself. This is something I often talk about in
therapy, and it’s something I’m still practicing as I get to know myself better.
As a full-time college student and artist, how do you navigate the challenges of balancing academic life
with your artistic practice? Has your education influenced your artwork in any way?
The relationship between art and formal education is complicated, on one hand, the understanding of the world around
you that education can afford can be extremely valuable to the creative process, yet at the same time, formal
constraints, requirements, and rules can be constricting to any artistic and personal ideological freedom you hope to
achieve. Balancing this with the need to prioritize my other responsibilities, which by all means have more real-world
consequences than whether or not I get to spend a day painting, can be a tenuous exercise. Ultimately, both serve
different purposes in my life, I don’t think I could ever do only one or the other, the combination is what’s fulfilling.
What kind of conversations or emotions do you hope to evoke in those who view your work?
I can’t be everything to everyone, I simply hope that someone can access this work and find what they need. I hope that
viewers may find one thing that comforts them, or one thing that discomforts them, whichever they need in that
moment. Think about it, maybe even talk about it, try to share it with someone in some way. That is what I want people
to do with this.
How do you create spaces within
your work where both you and your
audience can confront difficult
emotions, such as grief or isolation,
and find strength in them?
I’ve grown up viewing this world as a place
where it’s normal for us to hide things
from one another. There’s no specific
person that I can blame that on, and
there’s no specific place that I can go to fix
it. Art is one place I can go to challenge the
urge to hide. I hope that by consuming this
work others can start to challenge that
too.

The Swallow, The Daughter
Acrylic on canvas,
20'’x16'’, 2024

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