BLENDS SERIES

My Blends paintings are a series of abstract composite portraits based on stories collected of individuals’ cultural and ethnic histories. Each portrait develops from a solicited story of someone’s familial background and experiences. Our blended-ness carries forward and informs our identity, self-awareness, and relationships. My abstract “portraits” explore this through formal investigation responding to the stories: distinct shapes and colors layer together and become new forms that join into harmony. Where memories may slip and overlap, forming areas of rejection or incorporation, I explore edges in my paintings using translucent, saturated color and glossy surfaces that lean toward reflection. In this way, I build each into a new and complex identity. The paintings are most often exhibited with the anonymous stories.

People bring their families and histories along with them. My contributors’ Blends come with them to me, forming a web that intersects with modern world history. As identity and memory in our current state of things are becoming more complex, I believe it is increasingly urgent to consider. Identity is multi-layered. Our understood edges are not as defined as they were even decades ago. The need to allow for openness and empathy in our relationships with others is clear when we witness closed boundaries as a root of adversity. Using my abstract visual language I aim to celebrate and value human difference, in the hope that the more we appreciate and see each other’s uniqueness, the more effectively we can relate with one another to build a better world.

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