Being “mixed” is an increasingly relevant concept in my life. As a woman with a multicultural and multiracial family, finding a place of acceptance when the different communities only see the “other” in me is a driving factor in my art. I take a lighthearted and whimsical approach to the traumas of alienation and invisibility to not only process past experiences, but also reconnect to the readiness with which we accepted others as children. Through animation, painting, and sculpture, my work is an intimate practice exploring ways to work through inner conflict, find joy in the mundane, and achieve a sense of balance and belonging.

Slow, repetitive, deliberative processes drive my practice as they induce a meditative state that allows for internal reflection. Hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation has become an outmoded form for creating animated pieces due to the time consuming nature of the medium. However, its nostalgic look and slow, laborious process lend itself nicely to the application of my practice. The amount of time spent on each frame and having to complete many frames to make a single moment allows me as the maker to slow down and meditate on the material being generated, and also allows the viewer to experience a playful and entertaining piece.

Painting is another way I am able to simultaneously toy with the concept of “mixing” while creating an aesthetic and familiar experience for a viewer. The concept of mixing is a process that takes place in many aspects of daily life: chemicals in industrial production, ingredients in culinary arts, colors in art, and many more. These modes of mixing become a metaphor that I use in my art to explore the ways my mixed heritage has affected my life. My two-dimensional works are always on a smaller scale of under two feet, which I find gives an intimacy with the work that I enjoy during making, and also forces the viewer to come closer in order to engage with the work.

Through my works, my art blends the imaginative and the optimistic juxtaposed against the mundane and traumatic. Although my work’s content is rooted in personal experience, familiar and aesthetic visuals allow my work to reach a wider audience to share feelings of enjoyment, desire for community, and understanding.