Standing in the depths of the forest, watching the stars glint in the inky cosmos, I listen to the buzzing of insects and haunting cries of mysterious animals in the distance. Inhaling the scent of pine and decaying vegetation, I feel most alive and connected to my body. Being surrounded by nature and feeling a profound sense of awe is the closest thing to spirituality for me. I am reminded that we, as humans, are forged from stardust, and that our cellular makeup is composed of elements from stars that exploded billions of years ago. The same cosmic ingredients that are compressed to form planets also compose the carbon in our DNA, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones, and the oxygen in our lungs. Chemically, we are tethered to the universe, and that cosmic dust is alive within us.

My work directly expresses our spiritual connection to both the Earth and to my inner feminine goddess. Process, material, and color dictate my practice. I begin each piece with a gestural underpainting of vibrant splatters, running watery pools, and gritty textures on a birch wood panel, cementing a color story for the piece. By experimenting with mediums like sand, mica flakes, fluorescence, interference, and metallic pigments, I embed literal elements of the Earth into the canvas. Tactile textures evoke ancient paintings on cave walls. The flash of metallics and mica makes a painting feel alive with movement and spark, mimicking precious gemstones and minerals. Interference inks capture the otherworldly glow of natural bioluminescence in nature. 

After my underpainting is dry, I project and collage images together. Hunting for photographs online taps into my primal foraging instinct, satisfying the desire to find the perfect “shiny pebble” when worldbuilding my compositions. As we enter into the age of AI, projection becomes a seemingly primitive tool. Sitting in my darkened studio, I visualize myself as a prehistoric woman, placing her hand on a cave wall and tracing its outline with ochre from the Earth. 

As seen in Paleolithic Venus figurines, people of the Stone Age recognized that women hold an inherent connection to the Earth and that their bodies mirror the patterns of the natural world – observing celestial movements, lunar phases, and cycles of the seasons. Painting the female figure allows me to harness my power as a woman. Mythology and symbolism form the foundation of my work. As an artist of European descent, I often feel disconnected from my ancestral knowledge, driving my deep fascination for ancient art, culture, and religion. I view myths not just as stories but as a form of “proto-science” – humanity’s earliest, deeply logical attempt to explain natural phenomena using the observations and tools of their time.