I’m interested in the interplay between what can be shown and what must be felt. In the natural world, color is seductive. Flowers flash bright petals to attract pollinators; birds display iridescent feathers to draw mates. Color is how we find one another. I use non-local color in the same way—purple and florescent orange to communicate desire, the invitation of something tender and delicious. In this way, color becomes a way of communicating feeling—a bridge between what we see and what we sense.

Painting, like queerness, is about attention and invitation. What are we willing to see? What beauty do we allow ourselves to desire? These paintings are acts of reclamation—not just of landscape or form, but of self. By rendering queer life in lush, non-local color, I refuse silence. Instead I capture joy. I paint to touch something warm and alive—and to invite others to do the same.