This work was a part of a healing process coming to terms with my aging parents deceased brother, and memories of all of them. I see the paintings as mystical portals and brightly colored shrines, raw in material and colors and abstract in representation. Most of the work was done on mild psychedelics, cannabis and kratom but it calmed and focused my emotions and helped me celebrate instead of ruminate.

Memory, family history, and genetic patterning are the basis of this work. Sourcing photographs from my parents wedding album, childhood photographs from our family album, and images of genetic data, I layered them all together with various materials to make distorted versions of themselves. The repeated motifs are data visualization of genes that cause addictive behavior, something that is a part of my own and also many family histories. Digital culture invokes the idea that recording every moment has become a recording every moment has become a diligent and repeated ritual, almost religious in its activity. I tried to slow down his idea, making painted, digitally collaged shrines to various moments while considering how they are actually remembered.

Memory is often like an aura- a fragmentation rather than cohesive or constant image; a faded moment held together by other aspects larger than itself, such as personal history or inherited versus learned traits. In the paintings and prints, there are references to portals, arches, and gold leafreminiscent of religious iconography from the middle ages. Threaded throughout is the genetic imagery, providing both image structure but also the reminder that some aspects of your identity are inevitable.

We all ask ourselves what shapes our identity when it comes to our existence, or that of our family history. On top of this, memories are created differently in every individual. How is this processed in a space where everything is quickly recorded, archived and then kept for both public and personal reflection?