For the past few years I have desired to create a body of work that would in some way humanize, unify, and celebrate people. Over the course of a year, I used my personal journals and my own experience with growth as a way to authentically document what this idea might look like visually. 

I am drawn to the idea of viewers being able to connect with portraiture not because they recognize the subject, but rather because they recognize the humanness. I connect artworks that appear to be disconnected, in effort to show that individuality and unity are not mutually exclusive. Lastly, I aim to celebrate that not only do I I feel as though I am the luckiest girl on the planet to say that I have been shaped by these people and places, but I get to recognize the fact that growth is still possible in all seasons. We are all growing each other.

Perhaps the sweetest part of making this collection of work was including the very people who have inspired it. I didn’t just get to think about and explore human connection, I got to feel it as I hugged viewers-both friends and loved ones I knew well, and strangers who simply connected with the work in a beautiful way. Not only did I get to dream up ways to connect artworks visually, I got to see unity happen in a room. Some of my favorite people alive, having never met, yet brought together in a single space to look at the same wall. And celebration. Man. I will never get tired of celebrating my people. May we all continue to grow one another.