My practice is an exploration of the individuals that surround me and how painting, as a practice, can serve as a conduit for social engagement and empathy. In directly partnering with the people and communities I depict, we become collaborators of shared recognition- culminating conversations, site visits, drawn and written observations. I find value in the ephemera of people's lives: fridge magnets, piles of laundry on the floor, evanescent interactions and disregarded objects. These seemingly trivial moments in someone's space are the building blocks for forming a complex and valuable acknowledgement of personhood. 

I work in tandem with the subjects I portray, creating an experience of co-authorship. We exchange empathy in-person and view ourselves in real time. As this process unfolds, personhood and experience act to redefine the definition of the contemporary voyeur.  Viewing a subject and humanizing an image directly tests the capitalistic hierarchies that alienate us from the meditative action of noticing and acknowledging the other. A portrait can radically destabilize our own interactions and experiences of viewership in the modern age - a world built on the desensitization of our humanness. Using the stratified gestures and scale of this body of work is an invitation to acknowledge shared (in)visibility. 

.