I am a self-taught mixed media artist from California. I paint portraits using acrylics and raw materials, such as plastics, metals, feathers, antlers, paper, corks, fabrics and beads.

Each portrait is an emotional articulation of the female experience. My work is influenced by my identity and the narratives of isolation, longing and desire, coming out, external rejection and hostility, and self-embrace.

I construct material headdresses and garments in order to accentuate my subjects’ multi-dimensionality. The garment materials serve as metaphors for my subjects’ needs and desires: protection, intimacy, sensuality, freedom, and peace. The textured backgrounds are projections of my subjects’ internal worlds.

My goal is to portray women who are moving through experiences with courage, love, and strength as well as with rage, pain and fragility. And thereby, I seek to present female beauty as a deep expression of the internal self.