Traditional Work
"Red Tithe"
Oil on canvas (2018)
6x12, 6x6, and 4x6
​
This is a painting series I did for a class on color - oil painting is a medium I didn't have very much experience in at the beginning of the course, but I enjoyed learning about it.
​
The idea of the setting is that this small fishing town has been plagued by a seemingly eternal red tide, and not knowing what to do, the people begin to throw coins into the water, holding an almost religious belief that doing so will purify the water and allow them to thrive. However, this ultimately does nothing, and the town is steadily rotting as its citizens do nothing about the problem but continue to hurl their coins into the water.
​
Having grown up in Florida, I'm quite accustomed to beaches and the ocean, but the occasional red tide can freak you out. To step out onto a beach and see that the water has turned an infected orange-red color and dead fish washed up on the shores for farther than you can walk - it makes you think.
​
A few months prior to making these paintings, I was cleaning out my room and discovered a little change purse labeled "Tithe" (a childhood relic from my parents to store my childhood allowance for charity). As I continued cleaning, my brain ended up smashing words together, and when it clicked together the phrase "Red Tithe," my head was flooded with images of this story and place.
"Sofi"
Scratchboard (2015)
8x8
​
I wanted to experiment with scratchboard, so I tried out a subject with a lot of clear lines. Of course, what better subject for that but a fluffy animal... more specifically, my dog!
"Bicycle"
White charcoal pencil on black paper (2015)
18x16
​
This piece was a fun experiment - for class, I was assigned to draw a bicycle, but the interpretation of it was up to my own imagination. I constructed this small arrangement of my own art supplies that, when a light is shown on it, projected a shadow of a bike onto the wall.
"Lanterns"
Acrylic paint on canvas (2015)
16x14
​
This painting is based on a photo I took while attending a Chinese Lantern Festival celebration at a local zoo in Florida. Dusk was setting in, and the bright lanterns really stood out next to the darkening sky and the silhouettes of the trees and buildings around them. It was a really beautiful moment, which is why I ended up revisiting the photo and painting it.
"Planter"
Watercolor (2015)
12x18
​
There is a planter that looks like a woman's head that used to sit on a column in my childhood home. I thought the planter itself looked like a watercolor painting, so I wanted to try capturing its likeness in that medium.
"Drawing Hand"
White charcoal on black paper (2015)
5x3
​
This was a one-hour exercise, but it was a fun experience learning how to use white charcoal!