Artist Statement

My work began as a response to experiencing misogyny firsthand within the art world, as well as the deeply personal experience of having intimate photographs of myself distributed without my knowledge or consent. Later, my wearable art and drawings were also taken and used without my permission. These experiences changed the way I understood visibility, representation, and ownership, prompting me to question who has the right to construct an image of a woman, who controls its meaning, and what it means to reclaim that control.

At the center of my practice is an intentional act of authorship. I make the clothing, photograph myself wearing it, and then paint my own image. By occupying the roles of subject, photographer, and painter, I control each stage of the image’s creation. This process becomes a way of claiming both identity and creation, giving me ownership over how I am represented.

Sewing became part of my practice after a neck injury temporarily left me unable to draw or paint. What began as physical rehabilitation evolved into wearable art and eventually became integrated into my paintings. I am drawn to sewing for its tactile nature and its historical association with "women’s work", an often undervalued form of labor that nonetheless requires immense skill, creativity, and self-expression. Constructing garments by hand also allows me to hold onto slower, physical forms of making within an increasingly digital culture.

Through photorealism, saturated colors, and unconventional viewpoints, my paintings explore the tension between wanting to be seen and confronting the ways women’s visibility can become objectification, judgment, or possession. By constructing every stage of the image myself, I seek to reclaim visibility on my own terms and assert ownership over both the image and the identity it represents.