Artist Bio
Maybe every artist has to work through the way they were brought up before they can start making art that comes directly from their own experience. Painting from my family photographs, I began a process I call “deconstructed reconstruction” where I vigorously rip the paintings apart, and employ these elements to make bigger, more complex mixed media collages.
A central concern motivating my work has been a critique of “Purity Culture” and the politics and economics that surround the paternalistic prescription of women’s roles—as well as the sexualization of girls and women—in American society. In relation to this subject my BFA thesis work laced “purity” symbolically into my paintings as negative/blank space, a void of over-painted white that unsettles the image.
More recently I have become interested in depicting hands as a means of exploring psychological states, depicting them as reaching, yearning, searching, and clawing at themselves or something beneath or beyond themselves. While I’m aware of the myriad depictions of hands in art history, I have been reflecting particularly on my visit to David Hockney’s exhibition 82 Portraits and 1 Still Life. Knowing that each sitter posed for three days, I have wondered how their conversations with Hockney might have influenced the works. Appropriating this idea, I have begun exploring how in-depth conversations with my models can affect the manner in which I depict their hands.
Education
Hite Art Institute, University of the Basque Country, Latin University of Costa Rica
Louisville, KY Bilbao, Spain Heredia, Costa Rica
2014-2018 Semester abroad, 2017 Summer Abroad, 2016
BFA Drawing Spanish Contemporary Painting Spanish Language
& Painting
Spanish Historical Drawing Spanish Literature
BA Spanish
Group Exhibitions
2021 The Artemesias, KY Foundation for Women, Virtual Exhibition
2020 Barriers, Lexington Arts Connect, Online Exhibition
Festival of Lights, Jack O lantern Spectacular in Iroquois Park, Louisville, Kentucky
Women of Influence, Kentucky Artisan Center, Berea, KY
Herself, Lexington Art League, Lexington, KY
Change Now, PeaceState with Black Lives Matter, Louisville, KY
Art Makes Home, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Louisville, KY
2019 PRHBTN, Loudoun House, Lexington, KY
15th Annual Mazin Art Exhibit, Jewish Community Center, Louisville, KY
Festival of Lights, Jack O lantern Spectacular in Iroquois Park, Louisville, Kentucky
Kent Mansion Gallery Exhibit, Light in the Darkness: A Study of Hope and Healing, Indianapolis, IN
2018 Festival of Lights, Jack O lantern Spectacular in Iroquois Park, Louisville, KY
BFA Thesis Exhibition, Hite Art Institute, Louisville, KY
Red Alert Series Installation Collaboration, w/ Ying Kit Chan and Jordyn Oswald, Science Week in Germany & Switzerland
2017 Art Exhibition #11 at Bellas Artes en Garabia ZAWP, University of the Basque Country's Collective Visual, Bilbao, Spain
Grants & Residencies
2021 Artist Professional Development Grant, Great Meadows Foundation, Louisville, KY
Hopscotch House, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Louisville, KY
Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, Temecula, CA
2020 Artist Enrichment Grant, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Louisville, KY
Hopscotch House, Kentucky Women's Foundation, Prospect, KY
Commissions
2020 Family Portrait, Drawing commissioned by private owner, Louisville, KY
When Women Come Together, Mural commissioned by Kale & Flax Jefferson Community & Technical College, Louisville, KY
Italy Inspired, Mixed Media Painting, Louisville, KY
Arthritis in a Crisis, Mixed Media Drawing, Louisville, KY
2019 Kansas Sky, Colored Pencil Drawing, Liberia, Costa Rica
Last Look, Acrylic painting, Liberia, Costa Rica