Artist's Statement

I work with ordinary objects — vegetables, household objects, everyday architecture— and stay with them long enough for something else to emerge. Through scale, distortion, and attention, they begin to change: a ginger root becomes a cloud, a stalk of celery takes on the weight of a column, a city corner becomes a silent threshold. I’m interested in the moment where something familiar turns strange, emotional, or dramatic.

 

My still life drawings are centered on enlarged vegetables or roots. They’re not photorealistic; I exaggerate the form, amplify imperfections, and focus on silhouette and movement. In series like Unfolding and A Closer Look, I build each piece slowly using oil- and wax-based pencils, layering marks, softening tones with brushes, sometimes blending with solvents. The process is tactile and meditative. These materials let me control mood and depth while keeping the drawing responsive. Even with the same object, no two compositions are alike. Each one is an attempt to discover something new.

 

There’s a quiet humor in the seriousness of these drawings. The subjects are mundane: ginger, celery, peppers, — but the treatment is theatrical. That tension is intentional. I want the viewer to pause, look again, and begin imagining: Why does this vegetable feel so dignified? Why does this feel so quiet and heavy? I don’t offer a fixed answer. I create space for open-ended interpretation, strange, intimate, maybe a little funny.

 

The same principles shape my urban landscapes. I reduce the city to simplified silhouettes, soften its edges, and remove visual noise. These drawings come from my search for stillness inside movement, silence inside chaos. As a neurodivergent artist, I’m sensitive to overstimulation. Drawing gives me a way to filter the world—to find control, clarity, and a place to rest. Still life and cityscape might seem like opposites, but for me, both are about building calm within complexity.

 

My work is shaped by material and emotional constraints. I don’t have a studio; I live and work in the same space. Paper and pencils are compact and quiet, but they’ve also become how I think. I’ve developed a process that invites slowness and subtlety, while allowing for visual depth and tension. I often build drawings alongside collage studies and sketchbook experiments: I cut paper, found materials, layered textures to explore form and color more instinctively.

 

Whether it’s a root curling under a spotlight or a rooftop drifting into cloud, my work holds space for reimagining. It offers stillness, tension, and quiet humor — things I need in my own life, and things I believe others might need too.