The Human Face

Medium: Graphite 

Size: 14 × 11 inches each

Year: 2026

This is an ongoing series of graphite portraits - some drawn from photographs, some from people I know. Graphite allows me to concentrate on the depth of shadows and lighting on each face. I spend the most time on the eyes, building up highlights and reflections until they hold the drawing together. This series has taught me how features work together to create a cohesive face, and how to capture likeness that tells the unique story of its owner.

Songs of Love and Hate

Medium: Charcoal

Size: 17 x 23.5 inches

Year: 2025

This charcoal of Leonard Cohen surrounded by lyrics is a tribute to both the artist and my father. Growing up, my dad sang Cohen's songs to me, and those moments shaped how I hear music and poetry. The lyrics here were chosen for a specific memory of listening with him. I worked in charcoal for its range and rawness - deep black against bare white felt right for the vulnerability in Cohen's writing. The piece honors his legacy and the personal history his music gave me.

Memento Mori

Medium: Mixed media 

Size: 14 × 11 inches

Year: 2026 

I combined a skull with flowers and butterflies, demonstrating how growth and decay can coexist. I collaged it from separate reference photographs, so the hardest part was making their different light sources agree. The tradition this belongs to usually alludes to mortality, but I was more interested in what grows out of it. I shaded the skull in watercolor pencil, my first time with the material, which let me build softer transitions than I could get otherwise. Colored pencil emphasizes the flowers and butterflies, and charcoal in the background creates high contrast.

The Golden Ratio

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 18 x 24 inches

Year: 2026

This painting depicts a gathering of plants and animals whose forms approach the golden ratio, including the spiral that humpback whales trace when they feed in Antarctica. I built the image by glazing layers of transparent acrylic over an underpainting of spiral coral, so the structures are seen through one another. The subject has stayed with me since a fourth-grade teacher showed me the Fibonacci sequence and where it turns up in nature; the same pattern showing repeatedly in unrelated living things.

Perspective

Medium: Graphite

Size: 15 × 20 inches

Year: 2026 

I have always been interested in how a space can be abstracted while still being recognizable. To create this piece, I drew the room first, then worked back over it in graphite, replacing each surface with its own repeating mark. No two surfaces use the same pattern, which meant inventing a new one each time a plane turned. This piece gave me the opportunity to experiment with how to represent a subject beyond what is directly seen.

Act VI

Medium: Pen

Size: 11 × 14 inches, 8 papers, one shown

Year: 2026 

After finishing reading the play Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, I wondered what happened next. For a class assignment, I wrote and illustrated an invented sixth act. The characters go on spying on each other, extending the misunderstandings the original play never quite resolves. I worked in pen and ink, building depth through shading and linework. Each design reflects the character: Cesario and Sebastian are drawn near-identical, and Feste's costume marks him as the fool. This project allowed me to combine my interests in literature, writing, and art while experimenting with graphic storytelling.

Pocket Atlas

Medium: gouache on playing cards 

Size: 3.5 x 2.5 inches each, 12 cards

Year: 2026 

I travel constantly with my family, and I photograph everywhere I go. This work turns those photos into a deck of cards, each one a place that was meaningful to me. I used trimmed, homemade brushes to capture details on such a small canvas; for the foliage patterns in the background, I created my own textured brushes. It was my first time working in gouache, and I learned through this process how to avoid over blending, so that I could achieve clear, vibrant values. I liked the idea of carrying a set of small, collectible memories around with me.

Things I See

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 20 x 16 inches

Year: 2026 

This is a representational painting of my room from the perspective of my bed, looking toward the desk and wall where I keep artwork, mementos, and sentimental objects in my life. It's the view I see most often and to which I pay the least attention, which is why I decided to memorialize it. I painted it from direct observation in acrylic, a material I’m quite familiar with, to capture the small details that make the space meaningful to me.

Convection

Medium: Acrylic

Size: 48 x 48 inches

Year: 2025 

I painted this piece as a commission for a psychologist's office, for a room where people sit while working through difficult things. The canvas is two opposing fields: long sweeping strokes above, thousands of small marks below, so one half moves while the other remains still. The spiral, which I did not plan at first, emerged through the process of layering, the same structure I had studied deliberately in The Golden Ratio. 

About My Drawing and Painting:

My work asks viewers to notice what they have stopped seeing - the expression in someone's eyes, a gesture between friends, a room you pass through every day.

I keep an ongoing collection of hyper-realistic charcoal and graphite portraits, studying the face through specific marks: moles, freckles, individual hairs. I want to understand what makes a person immediately recognizable, and how features, expressions and gestures carry personality. Alongside those studies, I have made a group of works about the relationships in my life, where ordinary interactions hold weight because of the memory attached to them.

Before I create, I study and sketch a subject from several angles until I understand what makes it distinct. Then I choose the material for what it emphasizes: graphite and charcoal for the range of values, pen for precision, acrylic for vibrancy, oil pastel for texture. Layering, texture, and color change how a subject is understood, and I pick the material that supports the quality I want to bring forward.