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About the artist
I’m a recent graduate of the University of Central
Arkansas where I received my BFA in painting. At
school, I was the co-director of the student gallery.
I enjoy illustrating and have also dabbled in murals
and fashion design. I love projects!
About the artist's work
Artist Statement (From latest series, Flight Series)
Growing up in a devout Catholic household, I was
surrounded by paintings of religious icons, many of
which portrayed the Holy Mother. Take for example,
Titian’s Assumption 1516-1518. This is a painting of
Mary being consumed into heaven, body and soul. Even
without previous knowledge of the story, the viewer
is still aware of Mary’s importance because of the
expression on her face, one of momentous
significance, striking awe, and undeniable purity. It
is the expression of such figures along with
contortion of their hands and feet that I have
adopted and altered for my own purposes in my current
series.
The series includes: We Both Go Down Together, The
Assumption of Dorothy, and Almost There.
Stylistically, the first thing people notice is that
the figures are cut out. This reinforces the fact
that they are characters, not a part of a background
or the world, but imagined. The cut out form also
creates interesting, curvilinear shapes and negative
spaces. Almost There retains its background because
it is the transition piece from my previous work. The
figure is coming out of her world into a different
one. Without a background around their feet, the
characters are not grounded in any way. The viewer
feels that they are floating or flying. Incorporating
a balloon, winged monkeys, and birds strengthens the
concept of flight. The characters are reaching up,
drifting away, or floating higher. The figure of Sam
in We Both Go Down Together acts as a foil to the
rest of the paintings by holding out his hand to pull
the figure of Sarah back down.
The people and characters portrayed in my paintings
become significant in their search for significance.
I create portraits of people making discoveries and
changes, people that are disappointed, angry,
frightened, anxious, and in love. They yearn for
something which is just out of reach, something
unattainable. I do not look at them as objects or
plains of color and line, rather as projections of
self and humanistic drive to answer unanswerable
questions. Just as Titian portrays Mary looking
toward the Heavens, not in the Heavens. I want to
portray people with desperate faces and inconceivably
longings. I want to make paintings about people who
are almost there.
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