“2020 marked a huge shift in my creative pursuits. I was living in a small house with 4 roommates, one bathroom and no living room. When the lockdown started my bedroom became my office, my dining room, my gym, and my art studio. I had always painted here and there but now it became a daily ritual, making abstract color studies, big and small. I’d sit down with them anytime I had a free moment during work or after. Scattered around my room, I lived and breathed with them, getting to know them more intimately as days/months passed.

I soon revisited a collection of vintage playboy magazines I acquired years ago and played with the idea of making collages, combining magazines clipping with my paintings. The process of choosing which paintings to go with which clippings became somewhat thrilling. The curve of a model’s back is so similar to that curve of the pink acrylic brushstroke. Her foot lands perfectly on top of that swirl of yellow, like a puzzle piece. Paintings I’d done without really intending to do anything else with were now matching up with these magazine images made 50+years ago in this cool, serendipitous way

Looking back on it, the lockdown was such a shake up to our norm but we still found the way to fit that new puzzle piece to get through it, and even thrive. I’m so thankful for that time because not only have I found a medium of art that excites me still, it’s a constant reminder that there is a cosmic harmony to everything, the good and the bad, the known and the unknown.”