"Grief is felt in the body, as real as any injury. It is a heaviness, a physical ache formed. It is something that is ephemeral, fleeting in its presence, and yet able to permanently affect change. I feel this presence of grief within my own body. Its permanent alteration of the makeup of my form. It is a scar tissue that has healed over itself time and time again. 

Through the mourning of my past selves, of love once lost, this series of work At the Altar of My own Love came to be. These paintings reflect a rebirth, a coming to terms with departure, and a love returning that I thought dissipated. I have pieced myself back together, one fragment at a time, finding beauty in the sharpness of my edges, and a relief in being able to settle into soft spaces once again. I capture this through my mark making, through the suffusion of color throughout my works, and an interruption of traditional viewing formats. I work on a large scale in order to capture the breadth of these feelings of grief - where I shed my former self, emerging anew in my own love.

With the use of both fresh and dried floral matter sculpted alongside these works, the concept of memento mori is represented - a reminder of the transient nature of life. This applies to the nature of relationships and their metamorphosis. The paintings and sculptures express the process of grieving while seeking to understand a new reality. The small works showcased alongside the altars, act as vanitas - or vanities. These are capturings of evanescent moments of reflection, fragments of self and past loves, abstracting their presence as we let them go."

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