About

I make paintings about presence, connection, and seeing one another beyond labels.

I paint what I see as I feel it. Working in oil, I use long brushstrokes and finger-painted textures to trace the rhythms of nature: drifting clouds, rippling water, leaves moving in the wind. My palette comes from sunset and light falling through leaves, in faded orange, rose, mauve taupe, and light cobalt, deepening at times into ultramarine. These soft tones slow the eye and ease us into the present.

The work began with a single figure. My early acrylic paintings were minimal dog portraits in bright, saturated color, painted at the scale my dog Jupiter's joy felt to me. The dog figure allowed me to explore connection outside the expectations we place on human bodies. Now, as the figure grows smaller, leading us into the water, or dissolves completely, I move even further toward sensation, nature, and presence. In Jungian psychology, water is "the commonest symbol for the unconscious," the place where we sense things before we can name them.

My practice grows from an urge to give voice to what I have observed and felt. Growing up queer and highly sensitive in Taiwan, I noticed early how people are sorted by gender and held to different expectations. When I moved to New York, I became more aware of race as another way we categorize and perceive one another. With Jupiter, it was different: for the first time, I felt fully seen. He met me without words or judgment and taught me to be present.

Through my paintings, I create a room where the viewer's mind can breathe, and where we can meet one another beyond language and the labels we carry.