Born in 1990, I grew up on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, as well as the Midwest, and have almost permanently had a pen in my hand since I was a child. My mother always encouraged my creativity, and would provide colored pencils and crayons, but it was her inky, fine tip pens and pocket journals that she carried with her that were my first gateway to art… they often wound up missing from her purse. This probably explains the origin of the bold linework seen throughout my paintings and illustrations. After graduating high school in Iowa, I moved to Kansas City, Missouri to attend the Kansas City Art Institute, graduating in 2013 with my BFA emphasis in Painting. Since then, I’ve worked pretty much exclusively on private commissions and personal work. I moved to Portland in 2014 and spent five years working in early education as well as elementary tutoring.
When not working on illustrations or paintings, I enjoy exploring surface design projects such as batik and mask making. I spend much of my free time from work biking throughout the city, collecting vinyl, and (pre-COVID-19), going to the many shows and plays here.
Artist Statement:
I have always drawn and painted women. It feels as much a part of me to do so as anything else. For many years, I have been largely influenced by Art Nouveau and the Symbolist art movements, but more and more, my work leans towards an exploration of female archetypes in a vibrant, illustrative aesthetic. I want to represent feminine beauty and sexuality with a sense of playfulness.
My work is a collection of icon-like depictions of the figure, primarily female, in a non-specific narrative that tends to fuse relationships between a history of formal painting with beautiful linework. The representation of women as witches, goddesses, loners, and seductresses is of particular interest to me. The “pattern” surrounding most of the figures acts less like a wallpaper, giving depth and space to the image, and wants more to be an extension of the figure itself: The figure reigns supreme in a sense, but the ornamentation draping the figure desires attention and has a conviction towards hierarchical importance.
I strive for the viewer to find contentment in the simple notions of beauty and the “sensual woman.” The female form acts as its’ own obsession, both in the search of what feminine beauty means, and the empowered woman in all her manifestations.
