“My pieces are fantastical illustrations of nightmare-like scenes that I try to adorn with beauty. They reflect, for the most part, my own past terrors, discomforts, and occasional paranoia.
I had constant nightmares and insomnia while growing up. The ugly scenes I would see in my dreams constantly echoed in my head while being awake. I would have visions of gruesome and creepy scenes every single time I closed my eyes. This continued until the nightmares and dreams suddenly stopped around the age of nine or ten. I speculate that my nightmares, insomnia, and intense fear came from my internalized terror of dying.
I was born with a heart condition and underwent surgery to keep it under control. I have been constantly told that I could have easily died during my sleep any moment before the surgery when I was almost five years old. Sometimes the scenes reappear in my head, but they don’t scare me anymore. I embrace the ugly and weird and turn it into something I can observe without distressing. My fear of dying has been replaced with a deep desire to enjoy life and keep creating.”