Paying Attention.

Ever since I was little, I've loved paying attention to small things. I would sit in front of a mirror for hours, studying my own face and drawing self-portraits, fascinated by the subtle proportions of a face or how a single line could change an entire expression. Observing closely and carefully building something, detail by detail, has always brought me a particular kind of joy. I've come to believe that ordinary things are rarely as simple as they seem. Even the most familiar objects, movements, or faces can reveal something unexpected when we give them enough attention.

Take my golf swing, for example. I've played golf since I was young, and people have often told me that my swing looks natural and powerful. My speed developed almost without me realizing it. Yet golf remains one of the most challenging things I do. By breaking down that fleeting movement into individual moments and translating them into visual art, I found a new way to appreciate its complexity. Something my body had learned to do almost instinctively became something I could pause, examine, and understand differently.

I approach my own identity with a similar curiosity. Having moved between countries, states, and schools throughout my childhood, I've experienced many different versions of myself. From the tomboy I once was to the girl who now spends hours reading literature and making art, I've changed in ways that aren't always easy to explain.

In Pieces of Becoming, I cut photographs of myself into small fragments, then carefully wove and rearranged them. My once-familiar face gradually became something almost unrecognizable. Yet through countless small gestures, mistakes, adjustments, and accumulated hours of work, something resembling me began to emerge again. Taking myself apart became, unexpectedly, another way of getting to know myself.

I'm also a writer and performer, and I find that each art form allows me to pay attention in a different way. In literature, I'm drawn to the smallest gestures, the things characters leave unsaid, and the details that might otherwise go unnoticed. In theatre, a slight change in posture, timing, or tone can transform an entire character. Visual art gives me the freedom to explore these same kinds of details through images, materials, and physical forms.

My works vary in subject and medium, but they share an underlying approach: rather than rushing to define or explain something, I prefer to spend time with it. I observe, take things apart, experiment, and carefully put them back together, often discovering something I hadn't anticipated along the way. For me, making art isn't about turning ordinary things into something extraordinary. It's about discovering what was extraordinary about them all along.