About me
Born and raised in Minnesota, I grew up with a strong desire to experience the world beyond the Midwestern suburb I lived in. During high school, I developed a passion for painting and started to paint portraits as a challenge that I quickly fell in love with. Over time, this passion shifted into a continuous journey with painting figures in space. After graduating high school, I taught myself how to use oil paint and slowly started to show my work in galleries and exhibitions across the Twin Cities.
Artist's Statement
My work is grounded in reflection. I aim to better understand my own inner landscape with a continuous desire to try and broaden my perspective on present and past experiences. I am fascinated by the correlation between intimacy with self and intimacy with others. In my painting process, I am forced to be completely present. In these moments, I digest my experiences. I paint figures because I simply love people–individually and collectively. The more I paint others, the more I understand the world.
Though my work touches on timeless themes such as individuality, isolation, and feminine beauty, they are grounded through the inclusion of ordinary objects and spaces from daily life. The intentional and cinematic presentation of figures in my work is a reference to contemporary social media culture and shifts in visibility over the last few decades. Through my work, I hope to invite others to reflect on their relationship to themselves and others.
In 2021-2022, I finally had the opportunity to take a college painting class and expand my experiences through new travels while studying abroad at Santa Reparata International School of Art (SRISA) in Florence, Italy. I later returned to SRISA in 2024 to attend their year-long artist residency. While there, my work began to grow exponentially, and I started to use abstract elements in conversation with realism.
Currently, I am attending the MFA program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, where I am continuing to expand my painting process and find new ways to incorporate the figure in my work.