It’s a personal challenge to talk about my pieces because of how personal they are but it’s also important to share. 

This painting is titled “TIMORE” which translates to ‘terror’ in latin. For me, it is the feeling of uncontrollable free-falling; falling without the ability to catch yourself coupled with the piercing anxiety that eventually leads to rock bottom. 

The severed foot is the remnant of a close friend of mine who passed away from cirosis of the liver in 2017. It is a repeating memory that still haunts me. I recall watching him develop severe symptoms, not realizing I was watching him deteriorate before my eyes. His skin yellowed and his feet swelled. I watched him disappear. 

 The burning cop car is my fear and the fear of many to be living in country with unchecked and abusive police. It represents the fear I had as a child, and which I still fear sometimes as an adult, of following my father’s path and being trapped in the prison industrial complex.

As a recovering alcoholic, I feel I’m really just beginning to process these memories and traumas. As I’ve progressed as an artist, I have realized that art has always been and continues to be a sort of informal form of therapy for me. Art allows me to manifest my worries, traumas, and experiences in beauty.