Born in Guam to a military family, I have now been a San Antonio artist for over 23 years. I hold both my Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees in painting and drawing from The University of Texas at San Antonio. I’ve exhibited in galleries across Texas, including The McNay Art Museum, FL!GHT Gallery, Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, R Gallery, and the Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio, the Laredo Community College in Laredo, K Space Contemporary in Corpus Christi, Red Arrow Contemporary in Dallas, and The Union in Houston. Recently, I have been expanding my artistic career by curating contemporary art exhibitions with creative themes featuring local and regional artists. Most notably, activating a vacant gallery space at the Blue Star art complex and planning an upcoming exhibition at Centro de Artes. Her work is now on view at the Centro Cultural Aztlan Gallery.
Artist Statement:
Working in the mediums of chalk pastel, oil paint, and collage, I intuitively include varying images, textures, spaces, and scales within the picture plane. This creates realms of surrealism that allow for the impossible, the curious, and the extraordinary. There are several clear shifts in my work, starting with a focus on consumerism and advertisements, often painting directly on collages of ads or even creating my own ‘ads.’ Next, during Graduate school I abandoned the advertisements as my work pivoted toward a much darker, more personal direction. The ‘black on black’ pieces slowly became less intimate and evolved into more dreamy and mysterious imagery. The latest shift, however, has gradually come to involve an abundance of color, but often the pieces maintain a level of darkness in content. I draw on childhood references, objects, and characters, placing them in different, sometimes adult contexts that create situations blurring the lines between youthful memory and mature concerns. As of late, I’ve been drawing a variety of images and portraits over dynamic collages, enhancing texture on the physical, the visual, as well as conceptual level.
