Virtual Studio Visit
Please visit my official website using the navigation menu above.
As I continue developing my body of work, many projects remain in active progress and are not publicly shared until they are ready for professional presentation.
For the 2027 Art on the Block residency application, I am offering a behind-the-scenes view into my current studio practice and works in process.
I invite you to approach this page as a virtual studio visit and an opportunity to see how these ideas are developing in real time.
I am happy to provide additional information or references upon request.
Thank you for your consideration.
Art Practice Timeline
Highlights from my practice from 2022-today
2022
Art Students League student with instructor, Sharon Sprung
I painted the model from life daily. My full time study continued until May 2025.
2022
JX Farms residency
This dedicated time to paint was an important step towards developing work
outside of the ASLNYC student context. The residency included a culminating
solo show and an artist talk at Troy University.
2023
Ora Lerman Trust residency
I began my exploration of disposability and plastics as the
major themes in my work. I created a series of paintings of related to
recreation, vacations, and the plastic garbage they create.
2024-25
Merit Scholarship Art Students League of New York
I spent this year working with both Sharon Sprung in portraiture
and Oscar Garcia in sculpture. I was awarded a Blue Dot for portraiture
from life at the culminating Student Salon.
2026
Summer Residency with the Mackinac Island Historic Trust
I will be the artist-in-residence on Mackinac Island in Michigan this August. I plan to paint en plein air to keep my observational skills sharp, enrich my practice, and work towards more painterly handling. I will be giving demonstrations and leading a workshop during my stay on the island. One of the plein air pieces I create will be added to their collection.
Excess Contemporary Studios
I started an artist coalition this year and curated our first show.
See our 2026 invitational here through June 4th or view the exhibition catalogue.
Work in Progress
An overview of the body of work I am building
From Plastic Studies to Fragile Dissent
My interest in disposable plastic materials has evolved into an ongoing series of balloon paintings. I initially began painting balloons and other plastic objects directly from observation, using items from everyday life, including decorations from my child’s birthday party.
Over time, I became dissatisfied with the static and purely observational nature of these studies. In response, I began incorporating charged words and phrases onto the balloon surfaces, transforming them from simple still life objects into carriers of social and political tension.
The series Fragile Dissent reflects on the vulnerability and instability of contemporary resistance movements. The fragile, inflated forms of the balloons parallel what I perceive as a widespread atmosphere of hesitant resistance in the face of authoritarianism, environmental neglect, and damaging political and social systems. Through these paintings, disposable materials become symbols of both celebration and precarity, simultaneously seductive and unsettling.
Golden Birthday Balloons, 2024, oil on canvas 36" x 36"
riot, 2026, oil on canvas, 48" x 54"
From Fragile Dissent to Plastic Heirlooms
While developing the Fragile Dissent series, I became increasingly interested in the systems that normalize and perpetuate disposable plastic consumption around the world. I found myself returning to questions such as: Why do we so often act against our long-term collective interests? How have we become conditioned to depend on disposable materials and does it have to remain this way?
Books like Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked on Plastic by Saabira Chaudhuri inform this work. I am also currently enrolled in the NYC 2026 Trash Academy independent study program through the Sanitation Foundation. Learning more about garbage as it relates to capitalism, the environment, and global culture has been an unintended, yet endlessly inspiring, consequence of my art practice. I am happy to share my entire reading list.
Plastic Heirlooms expands these concerns through reinterpretations of traditional painting genres using plastic objects and waste materials. The series currently includes portraits constructed from balloon forms, still lives featuring toy food, and landscapes composed of mountains of garbage bags. Through these works, I am broadening my visual language beyond balloons to include a wider range of difficult-to-recycle plastics and culturally familiar disposable objects.
Although the work addresses environmental concerns, I aim to approach these subjects through visual humor, beauty, and curiosity rather than moralizing. I am interested in creating paintings that invite reflection and conversation instead of assigning blame or judgment. During the development of this series, I came to understand that the materials used to construct my compositions needed to align more closely with the themes of the work itself. As a result, I am shifting away from store-bought objects and increasingly incorporating recycled and community-sourced materials into my process.
Ultimately, I hope to move toward a practice where sustainability informs not only the subject matter of the paintings, but the methods and materials used to create them.
Oh, Hell No!, work in progress, oil on canvas 36" x 48"
Aristotrash, work in progress, oil on canvas 30" x 40"
From Plastic Heirlooms to Disposable Antiquities
Disposable Antiquities is the series I hope to further develop during an Art on the Block residency. This project began as a sculptural investigation at the Art Students League and has since evolved into the foundation for a new series of paintings centered on handmade vessel forms.
This work in progress draws inspiration from ancient Greek amphorae and kraters. I have been researching the historical function of these vessels and spending time studying the Greek collections at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. As I develop the surfaces of the forms, I combine visual references from ancient pottery with contemporary materials and motifs.
The vessels are constructed from papier-mâché and covered with recycled plastics, particularly plastic bodega bags. I am drawn to the parallel between these everyday plastic bags and the utilitarian role amphorae and kraters once served in daily life for transport, storage, and routine domestic tasks. Within these forms, disposable contemporary materials begin to resemble archaeological artifacts or future relics.
Using recycled plastics to create my own reference materials instead of purchasing manufactured objects for painting compositions represents an important shift in my practice. I no longer want my studio process to contribute unnecessarily to plastic accumulation.
Once completed, the vessels function as sculptural still life elements that can be arranged and rearranged throughout the space. Additional contemporary objects such as bottles and cans may enter the compositions, creating narrative tension between historical forms and present-day systems of consumption. I plan to create oil on canvas paintings of the vessels from direct observation in the storefront space.
Vessels, work in progress, mixed media, sizes vary appx 12" x 10"
A Final Note
As an artist and parent, residencies have been especially meaningful to the development of my practice. Dedicated time and space to work have consistently helped propel my painting forward and allowed me to pursue new directions with greater focus and ambition.
The community-centered nature of the Art on the Block residency is particularly appealing to me. I would value the opportunity to share my practice in a more public and collaborative setting while leading workshops and creative activities with small groups.
In addition to my studio practice, I have experience as a high school art teacher and have participated in museum education and outreach programming. These experiences have strengthened my interest in accessible, community-based arts engagement and have informed the workshop proposal.
Thank you for considering my application.