PUT A BOW ON IT

NOSTALGIA IN PAINT

​

OCT 2024

November 2024 marks 15 years since I moved to the Pacific Northwest.

​

My journey to Seattle didn’t begin with a freeze but with a ripple—one that started small and has continued to expand ever since. I arrived in the Emerald City, freshly 23, filled with wonder, charisma, jazz, and magnetism. The path I both chose and that unfolded for me has been perfect, with all its challenges and ecstasies. Music, creativity, psychedelics, and community took us on yearly nomadic pilgrimages to distant lands, connecting us deeply to nature and the elements. Festivals weren’t just a great time—they were our church, our classroom, places where we expanded our personalities and deepened our relationships with nature and each other. These paintings are love letters, dedicated to everyone who shared in these experiences—an homage to lands we no longer return to.

The only constant in life is change. In 2020, we faced a major shift—our identities and pilgrimages halted, and our communities disintegrated. Four years later, we are all walking paths different from those we once imagined. During the collective pause, we were gifted with time, perspective, and reflection, allowing us to shift from being "lost in the momentum" to consciously "choosing" in a reconfigured world.

This show is a collaboration with my past self to help center me in the Now. From a camera to a phone, I’ve carried this image-capturing tool with me every day, and I called upon my digital timeline to create a compositional collage of these locations throughout the years. Along the way, I reunited with my younger self—acknowledging her innocence and curiosity, honoring her hard work and choices, and letting her know she’s arrived where she wanted to be.

It’s a vulnerable journey of the heart, mind, and paint. The temples in these paintings are time machines that take us back to memories—of us, and of place. The energetic light flares capture our emotions, memories, and connections as we dance through this soul’s journey together.

This is how I’ve chosen to work with my glitches and nostalgia—so I can put a bow of love and compassion on my past and carry it forward, illuminated, into my future.