My work is figurative, and I primarily focus on one’s childhood. The idea stemmed from a collection of photographs my mother had taken of my family members and me over the course of a few years.  As I gazed upon the photos, I recalled certain events and times, and pieces and fragments of certain scenes emerged from my memory. But at some point, I realized I had forgotten some moments and was reminded by my mother what had occurred. There are moments that I remember fondly because of a distinct smell or taste, or it was a moment when a significant change was taking hold in my life. 

My oil paintings depict children in unsettling scenes that are engulfed in an assortment of lines that help to create space surrounding the figure. The faces are fully rendered while the space occupying the figure is not defined, only a few gestural lines to indicate what could or may not be which alludes to the idea that this event took place or is it something that one imagined. The developed and undeveloped scenes I create also add to the idea of how one’s childhood goes by in the blink of an eye, here today and gone tomorrow. My portraits of children are of people I have a relationship with, such as family members and friends. I take the photos provided to me and create my narrative surrounding that painting, similar to how we are handed pictures of ourselves as children to help us recall or create memories of our own. There is a sense of honesty within the faces of the children I depict. As we get older, we lose that sense of honesty and begin to hide our true selves to fit into a society that deems us as  “different” if we don’t follow the status quo, but that’s another story for another time. 

My sculptures, on the other hand, like the image pictured below, are a combination of memories, drawing influence from dolls I had as a child, and even a little bit of me is sprinkled throughout it. The hair of the sculpture is reminiscent of these ball-shaped hair ties my mother would put in my hair. As I walked, my braid ponytails swayed from side to side, and the hair ties often collided, making a loud sound. My mother and I usually joke that you could hear me from a mile away. The dolls I had as a child brought a great sense of comfort to me during times of uncertainty. One doll, in particular, favored me in its curly hair and brown skin, and I took her wherever I went to ease some of my discomfort in adjusting to a new environment.