The Art of Becoming: A personal journey over the Years

A personal collection of artwork created over the years, reflecting my evolving perspective, emotions, experiences, and artistic voice. Each piece captures a moment in my journey of self-discovery and growth—an exploration of who I have been, who I am and who I am becoming as an artist.

The first painting

The very first painting I did where I discovered the enjoyment of acrylic pouring and truly letting go. While I am still discovering my own personal style, I enjoy teaching others in my private sessions the basics of this technique.

Beneath the surface series

Artist statement: This series explores the female body as both a vessel for life and a landscape of vulnerability. Through abstract forms, I reference the intimate anatomy of the female reproductive system, particularly the cervix, while allowing the imagery to remain open to interpretation. Rounded forms, openings, folds, and cellular-like patterns emerge through layers of deep reds, pinks, yellows, and muted tones, creating a visual language that is simultaneously organic, beautiful, and unsettling.

The vibrant colors represent vitality, blood, fertility, and the possibility of life. Beneath this vibrancy, darker and distorted forms emerge, suggesting cellular changes, uncertainty, fear, and the potential threat of cervical cancer. The paintings exist between beauty and discomfort, creation and destruction, life and mortality.

Cervical cancer can develop quietly, often beneath the surface of the body before symptoms become apparent. The obstacles surrounding cervical health extend beyond the disease itself. Fear, stigma, limited access to preventative care, financial barriers, and the discomfort of discussing intimate parts of the body can all create obstacles to screening, diagnosis, and treatment.

The swirling layers within these paintings become a metaphor for these complications. What appears beautiful from a distance can contain something much more complex underneath. Each layer represents the physical and emotional realities that can exist within the female body—life, change, vulnerability, fear, and resilience.

Rather than depicting female anatomy literally, I use abstraction to bring attention to a part of the body that is often discussed clinically or avoided altogether. By transforming these intimate forms into color and movement, I hope to create space for conversations about women’s health, bodily autonomy, and the importance of paying attention to what exists beneath the surface.

Ultimately, this series is a meditation on femininity, vulnerability, mortality, and the fragile possibility of life. It asks us to look closer at what our bodies can conceal, confront the obstacles that can prevent us from caring for them, and recognize the importance of listening to the body before silence becomes irreversible.

Cosmic lemons

Artist statement: This painting references the nebula NASA has described as the “Cosmic Lemon” or “Sea Slug.” Through abstraction, I reinterpret this celestial form as a sea lemon drifting through space, incorporating imagery of peeled lemons. The work explores the playful connection between familiar organic forms and the vast, otherworldly landscape of the cosmos.

Shapes of Time

Artist statement: Shapes of time is one of my earlier works, created in 2016 during my first year away from home going to university. The piece began without a predetermined concept; instead, I approached it as an opportunity to experiment and play with the materials I had on hand. I used old newspaper as collage, rolling and layering it to create geometric forms, then applied watercolor over the surface.

Looking back, the process reflects the experience of that period in my life. The act of building something from ordinary, discarded materials became an unexpected reflection of learning how to create a life of my own—experimenting, adapting, and discovering how to navigate independence. What began simply as an exercise in making became a quiet record of my first year learning how to survive on my own.

Olives in space

Artist statement: If you know me, you know I don’t particularly enjoy eating olives. Yet in this work, the olive becomes something far beyond my personal opinion of its flavor. Olives in Space explores the olive as a symbol of peace, resilience, and renewal.

The work references a collaboration between Greece and Japan that sent olive seeds into space as a message of hope and recovery. Initiated in 2021 in connection with the Tokyo Olympic Games, the project connected Greece’s ancient symbolism of the olive with Japan’s vision of rebuilding and looking toward the future.

For me, the journey of these seeds carries particular significant symbolism of life continuing after unimaginable loss. I created this piece in 2023, reflecting on the idea that even after devastation, something can be carried forward, planted, and given the opportunity to grow again. The swirling forms and vibrant colors represent the movement of these seeds through space while creating an abstract landscape where nature, humanity, and the cosmos intersect.

Ultimately, Olives in Space is not about the olive itself, but about what it represents: peace after conflict, resilience after tragedy, and the possibility of new life after destruction.

Untitled

Artist statement: tbd

Sunny side up

Artist statement: Have you ever tried to cook an egg on concrete because it is so hot outside? Now imagine that same sunny-side-up egg floating in space.

Sunny Side Up transforms the familiar image of a fried egg into a cosmic landscape. The bright yellow forms resemble yolks, inspired by the intense glow of a hypergiant star, while the surrounding layers of blue, purple, pink, and white evoke the expansive shells of cosmic dust and gas surrounding it.

The painting draws a playful connection between something ordinary and something unimaginably vast. Just as an egg can cook quickly under extreme heat, hypergiant stars burn through their energy at an extraordinary rate. Their immense brightness comes at a cost: they consume their fuel rapidly and live relatively short lives compared with many other stars.

This became a metaphor for the way we can move through our own lives—constantly working, worrying, rushing, and consuming our energy without stopping to consider what we are spending it on.

As humans, we often glorify being busy. We move from one responsibility to the next, leaving little room to simply exist. Like these enormous stars, we can burn brightly while slowly burning ourselves out.

The egg becomes an invitation to do the opposite. Instead of constantly being on the move, what if we took a moment to enjoy breakfast? What if we allowed ourselves to slow down, be present, and appreciate the ordinary moments that make up our lives?

Through vibrant color, fluid movement, and humor, Sunny Side Up connects the immense scale of the cosmos with the very human experience of exhaustion. The painting asks us to consider how we spend our limited energy—and whether, sometimes, the most meaningful thing we can do is simply stop, sit down, and enjoy breakfast.