Artist Statement

I come from resourceful people who fix what’s broken, make things last, and figure it out as they go. My understanding is shaped by early experiences living within state systems and poverty, where I learned to pay attention to how hardship and care coexist and to what gets left behind in the struggle to overcome a legacy of neglect.

Through experiences that challenge humanity, the weathered and scarred become ordinary, and the ordinary becomes beautiful. I make to remain connected and to recognize moments of quiet strength, instinctual resilience, and the possibility of breaking through.

My relationship with my nephew, marked by cycles of incarceration and ongoing recovery, has been emotionally difficult and deeply formative. Witnessing his struggle sharpens how I see the fragile space between survival and change.

This perspective extends into my community work, where I developed and taught a photography and text program at the Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court boys’ probation house. Working alongside these young men continues to complicate my understanding, resisting simple narratives and reinforcing the need to hold multiple truths at once.

My niece lives within that same legacy of neglect, yet she carries something unresolved and open. She represents the persistence of dreams not yet fully shaped by circumstance. Together, these relationships ground my work in tension between hardship and possibility and sustain my belief that even within complicated realities, there remains space for transformation.