WONDERLAND
These illustration paintings are my interpretation of characters described in Lewis Carroll's book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland".
IN BED
I have narcolepsy and have a special relationship with my bed which has changed overtime. I used to have realistic night-terrors in high school, but now at my middle age, I welcome my sleep and my dreams as a time of healing and rejuvenation. This series explores people's relationships with their beds and with their dreams.
PIECES OF ME
I have narcolepsy and it takes me less than a minute to reach my REM sleep dreams as well as to come back to alert conscience. I think through my dreams and nightmares and can sometimes manipulate the story. This blur of sleep and awake has cause my dreams to become like memories to me.
These paintings are the reoccurring dreams I had from puberty up into my late 20s. I went to private Catholic school from kindergarten to 12th grade and was "brainwashed" to think sex and sexuality was bad and that if I sin, my soul would become dirty and I would go to hell when I die. Even though I no longer believe this and have a healthier view of life and spirituality, I can't completely shake ideas that were imbedded into my brain when I was a child.
EAT ME
In my teens and twenties, I had a negative voice inside my head that would be my motivation to restrict calories and over exercise in order to loose weight. Now that I'm older, I have a positive voice inside my head and I have become content with my body. I'm now in my mid 40s and it took one negative comment about me being overweight that caused that nasty voice to come back. These paintings are from me dieting by restricting calories and also from being hurt emotionally.
TAROT
These paintings are my interpretation and design for Tarot cards. Sometimes, in life, we feel lost and need some reassurance or validation about what actions or in-actions we should take. Each painting has a message for the viewer, so if a specific painting calls out to you, you should listen to its message.
CONUNDRUMS
I call this series conundrums because it's hard to decipher what is really going on in the scenes. The title of the paintings play off of two different scenarios. Sometimes our perspectives blind us to reality. It's important to step back and observe a situation or individual before coming to a judgement.
Supreme Beings
This is a collection of paintings portraying various religious deities ranging from Egyptian to Greek mythology. The paintings of Egyptian gods - RA, Sekhmet, and Nekhbet have bodies & attire fashioned after late 1500s - 1800s
Although these painting might seem silly and absurd now portraying portraits of humans with animal heads dressed in well dated attire, the people who believed in these gods or dressed in these fashions would have had a different opinion. That is to say, not one society's religious beliefs or dressing habits should be judged as better or worse.
In the end, we all are the same, just trying to survive and make sense of our current times.
Masters of Intrigue
This collection of paintings are very whimsical with dramatic lighting and bold colors. Most of the figures are inspired by Commedia dell'arte characters, and there is an intertwined atmosphere of masquerades, Carnival, and Mardi Gras celebration.
HUMAN NATURE
These paintings & painted furniture were created during my Summer Residency at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. These works contain a lot of symbolism and metaphors that relate to my perception of the Human Body, Soul, and Behavior. Some of the work is about human nature: our social persona; how we cover-up our pain or guilt to others, and how we feed our loneliness with materials. The other work displays a metaphor between the Human body and machines. Liquid Gold-leaf was added as accents to a lot of the work (I am a big fan of Gustav Klimt).
Dirty Sex Suits
“Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes” ~ John Donne
I created the “Dirty Sex Suits” series to visualize the Tao Te Ching’s belief that, we are all born, live, and die. Even though we, as humans, may have different experiences in the material world, we will all equally die, so be content with what you are given, have no fear, and live it up. “It is the way of Nature, An eternal decay and renewal."~ Lao Tze
My acrylic paintings are surreal (dreamlike). I wanted to contrast the material and spiritual realms in the paintings. The Material world is earthy , raw, sexual, heavy, sculpted, and realistic. In contrast, Spiritual world is bright & shiney gold leaf painted designs. The spirits are leaving their temporarily given "suits" through a zipper.
