It begins in the body. The sting of mirror reflections. The cold hollowness of remembering best friends that I used to call every day but now only hear from in passing. The itchy, gnawing sensation of broken promises made and lost on a whim. Ironically, it’s not the physical wounds that hurt the most—it’s the invisible assaults on our psyche that linger and fester, long after the moment has passed.

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I’ve depicted the physical manifestation of internal conflict. Working on these pieces has helped me transform some intangible gut feelings into visible forms. I chose to use oil paint because this medium is at once raw and tactile, visceral and deeply expressive. This series exaggerates the unsettling: body parts isolated in space, jarring and saturated color, juxtapositions of objects that should not be together. In this way, familiar objects like limbs, insects, and organs become alien, disquieting, yet strangely intimate.

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Is it anxiety? Fear of imperfection? Simply stress? To be honest, I don’t know. But to paint is to acknowledge, and to acknowledge is to begin understanding. Painting is my way of processing emotions that are too messy, too overwhelming, to put into words. 

I believe there’s healing in vulnerability. Painting these pieces taught me to accept the chaos of emotion. Because that’s the messy, beautiful truth of it—we’re all only human.