“I paint and draw to ground myself to my surroundings. The process of drawing has been around since the beginning of recorded history, and inherently, it brings us closer to those who came before us. I find that I use my painting to understand and play with the world around me, using it as a response to stimuli that is often difficult to take in all at once in our busy world. Creating art gives me time to process, understand, and react to my world in a way that allows me to ponder it rather than be overtaken by it. I enjoy amplifying and simplifying shapes, feelings, and colors that I see in order to give myself a stage in which I can show how I view the world. Interactions between color, line, and shape drive me to have a playful approach to the things I want to convey in my work. Along with the ability to process my surroundings, art has been my preferred way to connect and communicate with those near me. Being able to communicate through art has opened up my way of thinking and has allowed me to connect to those in my life in a more meaningful way. My work is inspired largely by animals and nature. Simplifying the connection between the two, and breaking them down to their internal workings (i.e skeletons and environments) is something I focus greatly on and enjoy exploring. Generally working with acrylic paints, acrylic mediums, pencils, oil pastels, and paint markers, I aim to capture the simplicity in this world’s chaos.”