I actually started my art-making life shooting film and printing in the darkroom in high school. I fell in love with the entire analog process: using old cameras, working in the darkroom, mixing chemistry, and not knowing how your shots turned out until you went back and developed them. My niche was interrupting the chemical processes required for film to develop or print properly, creating a controlled chaos of color and turning the destruction of the image into abstraction.

But even back in high school, I would always find myself doodling and playing around with weird abstract forms in my downtime. I love rich colors, complicated, highly detailed shapes and forms.

My paintings, especially this earlier work, can be really meditative and relaxing to work on, so I would paint all the time without really taking it too seriously or showing anybody my work. I was taking my photography seriously; the painting was simply a way to relax at the end of the day, something to do just to have something to do.

It was years later, while going through a bunch of my old work, that I realized I had developed a unique style with my paintings and drawings. I figured I should actually show them to some of my friends. When they told me all the different things they saw, and the different emotions they read in the same piece, I got so excited! I realized that I could convey something more intangible and enigmatic through painting, and that this ambiguity could engage people with the work in a way I found particularly interesting. 

From there, I continued to develop the style, cleaned up the work a bit, and became much more intentional in my decision-making process. But I never lost the part that made me want to make these paintings in the first place: the freedom to play, experiment, and see what other people find in them.

My paintings I think are some of my strongest work, but I still love to play around in the darkroom, and really consider myself a dabbler in all mediums :)