I live and work in Danville, Kentucky, a small town where I see the same faces every day. That familiarity shapes the rhythm of my life and studio practice. As a Latina woman in a rural area, I grew up intensely aware of how different I looked from the people around me, and it took years to understand that difference as something beautiful. Painting helps me process my journey toward belonging.

I’m driven by curiosity about what it means to feel at home in the world and what it might be like to live in a place where everything fits together easily. I spend a lot of time in nature, where the relationships between plants and animals feel coherent. That sense of ordered wildness reminds me that I’m part of something bigger, and it often becomes the emotional starting point for my paintings.

I create vibrant, high-gloss figurative oil paintings. I mainly paint self-portraits and imagined outdoor scenes with realistic plants and animals. My process is slow and layered: I build each surface with wet paint and glazes to create sharp contrasts, rich colors, and luminous depth.

To me, each painting feels like a window into an idealized world that is close enough to imagine stepping into but still just out of reach. Oil paint has become my most reliable tool for shaping those visions. I hope that my deep love for the world, its creatures, landscapes, and small moments of wonder, is visible, and that each painting invites viewers to slow down and notice the beauty already present in their own lives.