I began etching words into my paintings back in 2006. This series is one of my more recent; starting around 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic.

I wanted to paint portraits that were also self-portraits. I wanted them to be personal and filled with histories and storytelling from the person who is being depicted, not the me, the artist. To convey that concept, I collaborated with the people being depicted and asked them to paint their faces then I sewed their paintings onto my own. I also interviewed them, asking self-defining questions, and etched the results of those interviews into the background of my painting. The people's bodies were painted entirely by me.

To further explore that idea of change being an inseparable facet of living beings, I began transforming my stagnant 2D painted faces/portraits into a 4D moving work of art. Inspired by the work of Tony Oursler, I began inlaying video screens into my canvases and projecting doubles of my portraits atop of my paintings that would come alive. The content of the videos is what gave birth to the concepts

Another way that I share the inner self of my subject is by painting on a surface that is openable, like books or boxes. I've painted on books where the content was representative of the person portrayed in the painting, and I've painted on blank sketch books where the books were added to over time as a metaphor for how we are changed by those around us via our interractions with them.

Boxes are a choice-based inner self. The book examples were already pre-set in the case of history and out of your control in the case of community altered sketch books, but boxes involve an element that I choose to add to them. Examples include, ways that I can improve myself or people who inspired me to become who I am today.