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This collection draws from two worlds: the natural and the commercial. By juxtaposing synthetic and organic elements, I aim to exhibit the tension between these opposing forces. Hand-drawn illustrations are taken apart and combined with manufactured objects such as magazine clippings and clothing tags. I then further deconstruct these collages into individual cut-elements inspired by the natural world—florals, insects, greenery—and then recombine them into three-dimensional collages mimicking the growth of nature, such as a field of flowers or moss growing on the base of a tree. The work embodies a shift in value from the commercial to the natural world, reflecting the potential of human creativity—the ability to deconstruct and reconstitute the material world into something new – and hopefully - beautiful.

In this series, the color spectrum is my musical scale and paintings are my songs. I’ve always connected to the worlds of color and music. From childhood, hues flashed to me like sparks: the blue of summer sky against a ripple of darker blue water, or a shiny ROYGBIV beetle on top of matte textured bark. Music moved me much the same way—be it a symphony’s crescendo, an intensely emotional ballad, or even the sugar-coated beat of a pop song. Like a mix master, my aim is to evoke the musical within my visual practice by layering colors and textures to create harmonious combinations. Music and visual art have the power to evoke different emotions depending on their composition. My favorite approach is to light up a canvas with vibrant brights and unexpected tone combinations. Neons juxtapose with faded neutrals; pastels provide a counterpoint to primaries; darker tones live alongside the saturated. The rules of the color wheel are thrown out the window. As it is in the aural realm, anything is possible when employing visual vocabulary unfettered; as long as it brings a zing of joy, the choice is right. And crucially, I listen patiently for inspiration: schemes come instinctively, welling up from my technicolor soul and creating worlds of magic. ‘Chromatic Harmony’ is created with mixed media on rice paper and then mounted to acrylic or iridescent acrylic and coated with layers of acrylic and/or resin and cut glass glitter.

The companion to Entropic Beauty, ‘Bloom’ focuses on my favorite artist: nature. There is so much beauty in the natural world and its astounding use of color, pattern, and symmetry. I’m driven to capture this tremendous beauty: the surprise of bare winter branches becoming blooming trees; patterns in molecules invisible to the naked eye; the innate order of the Fibonacci sequence seen in delphiniums, pineapples, and nautilus shells. Pure as it is, however, nature is never untouched. The man-made finds its way in, for no matter how hard we try the materialist, consumerist world rears its head. Thus I incorporate elements of my entropic series here, finding inspiration and materials from a variety of sources such as personal illustrations and photography, vintage books and magazines. Everything is deconstructed and reconstructed as I assemble the elements onto giant sheets of paper, again to be further cut into individual flowers, fauna, and butterflies. These components are then pulled together into a 3D collage on acrylic, inviting the viewer to discover the fine detail and intricate patterns of the individual flowers, which remind us of the wonder and magic of the natural world surrounding us.

Are these abstract aerial views of geological landscapes or micro-impressions of crystals and the human body? My Symphonic Atlas series is inspired by my favorite muse, nature. There is so much beauty to be inspired by all around us. The swirls of vibrant agate rock, wavy patterns in natural land formations, a cross-section of a rainbow-hued crystal, candy colored stripes lining a glacier: these and other scenes are my inspiration. As well as beauty, however, there is mystery in nature. As such, I love to leave the true meaning of a piece ambiguous; to leave unclear whether these works reflect contained, finite moments or small snapshots of something larger and continuous. No matter how viewers interpret it, I hope the series challenges perceptions and invites questioning. These works are created on acrylic or often iridescent acrylic, and layered with swirls of mixed media and coated in cut glass glitter and crystals—combinations that create an interactive effect, drawing the viewer in and changing as one moves around the piece with its shifting luminosity.

This body of work is inspired by the marks and patterns found in the world all around us, both the natural and the technological. From the microscopic pattern of our DNA, to the vibrant marks on an exotic butterfly or wild mushroom, to barcodes on clothing tags, fingerprint identification systems, and contact tracing, the marks are intended to be abstract, like a code hinting at the collision of our humanity and the natural world. These are the marks we leave behind. I created this series on rice paper, allowing the paint and watercolor to bleed into the paper to keep the marks organic and fluid. At the outset, the paper is folded in half, allowing each mark to bleed through and leave its trace on the reflected side. The overall effect is symmetrical - mimicking the reciprocal effects the natural and human worlds have on each other—yet upon close inspection each mark has its own nuanced signature. Some marks are left intentionally light, while others are layered with additional pigment. The paper is then mounted to acrylic with a gloss to further blend each pattern into a solid white background and coated with layers of glass beads, a process that further distorts the marks and adds an element of interactivity to the illuminated piece while viewers circulate.