What songs hum your lost landscapes?
2023-
This new series of paintings is a homage to daily rituals and the unseen architects of our quotidian conveniences. The essence of my work is etched in the silent yet eloquent hand movements of laborers— immigrants whose tenacity is often overshadowed by the invisibility of their toil. These hands, from the nail salon to the fish market, from the takeout restaurants to the aisles of grocery stores, and the barber shops that echo with the snip of shears, are the muses of my canvases.
As a body retains the subtleties of experience, transforming them into a living archive, my art also seeks to capture the indelible imprint of memory stretched across the distance of history and collective trauma. Through mark-making, I chronicle the small gestures and everyday manners that unveil the deep-seated pain endured by these workers and celebrate their indomitable strength and resilience. In their repetitive motions is a poetry of survival, a language of connection that bridges the chasms of their fragmented pasts.
My spatial compositions and the handling of paint aspire to transcendence, to touch the abstract and the sublime. Yet, within the labyrinth of lines and colors are whispers of imagery and narrative—quotidian poetry that speaks to the core of human endurance. These strokes are abstract revelations, a visual dialect translating the silent stories of those who serve, sustain, and survive against the backdrop of a city that never rests.
Through my work, I invite the observer: to pause and reflect on the quiet cadence of these laborers' movements, to recognize the essential threads they weave into the fabric of our lives. It is a pathway to healing, an acknowledgment that within the humblest acts of service lies a profound beauty and a potent force for connection and recovery.