WATERCOLOR
Lingering Landscapes
I retreat into nature to ground myself in moments of joy, hardship, and loss. It is where I go to think, remember, and find peace. These watercolor landscapes are drawn from places I return to again and again. Spaces that hold both stillness and emotional weight.
When I’m in nature, I feel fully present while also drifting through memory and longing. These paintings explore that tension between presence and absence, and the human desire to hold onto fleeting, meaningful moments.
The small sheet ghosts that appear in my paintings represent the people who have shaped me. Sometimes they were physically there; other times they arrived as memories. Their presence honors the connections that linger within these landscapes. Once complete, each painting becomes a quiet memorial to impermanent moments. Emphasizing a reminder to notice where we are, whom we carry with us, and how memory continues to guide us forward.
'Die Happy' Series
This series explores impermanence through small-scale watercolor landscapes inhabited by ghostly figures. These works were inspired by a 2020 road trip with a close group of friends across the United States and into the Rocky Mountains. The figures represent those companions as we moved together through unfamiliar and expansive landscapes. A sense of deep togetherness is paired with the awareness that such moments are temporary. The ghostly forms act as echoes within the landscape, suggesting how shared experiences and memories linger in a place long after the moment itself has passed.
Other Watercolor Landscapes
These watercolor paintings depict scenery from Maine, Acadia National Park, and the Northeastern United States without human presence. Focused on observation rather than memory, these works emphasize atmosphere, light, and geography, allowing the landscape itself to hold meaning through moments of quiet and stillness.
I retreat into nature to center myself in moments of joy, hardship, and loss. I go there to think, to remember, and to find peace. My work draws from the vastness and beauty of the landscapes I return to again and again. Within these spaces, I reflect on how we, as humans, physically and emotionally navigate the environments that surround us.
When I retreat into nature, I am fully present in my surroundings while simultaneously drifting through memory, longing, and escape. In a post-COVID era shaped by isolation, loss, and uncertainty, my paintings explore the tension between presence and absence and the human impulse to cling to moments of fleeting, sublime stillness.
The ghostly figures in my work honor the people who have shaped me. Whether they were physically present in the moments I depict or exist only as memories that came to mind while traversing these landscapes, their influence on each work has been profound. Each landscape I paint serves as a way to forever memorialize those fleeting moments where I felt deep connection in the stillness of nature.
The impermanence of those around me and of the moments we inhabit fuels my curiosity. It prompts me to question how fully I inhabit each moment and how cherished memories continue to guide the way I move through the world.