SOFT HITS: how I cultivate iconography to extend a self reflective personal theology

The Double-Edged Welcome

The candy that pinches your gums. The visual Trojan horse.

One of the hardest parts of creation, for me, is deciding whether or not I want a story — and then, if I do, arriving at one. It’s not always a clear path. Sometimes I excavate meaning after the piece exists, digging into layers I didn’t know I was laying down. Sometimes, there’s no story at all — just fragments, textures, gestures — and I leave it to the viewer to decide if one is even needed.

Creation is rarely linear, especially when you’re pulling from caverns carved by constant imagery, contact, and stimulation. I collect. I sift. I distill. Then, I form an image — or maybe the image forms me.

Art as Response

At its core, my personal aim as an artist is to respond. Not to dictate, not to declare, but to absorb and answer back.

I often think of a bubble floating through a crowded street. Inactive at first — reflective, weightless, holding a distorted version of its surroundings. But with the right amount of pressure, it pops. It leaves behind an iridescent film, a shimmering puddle, or maybe even a smaller bubble, something less perfect but more permanent. That’s the space I want my work to occupy — a record of what happens after something bursts.

So, how do I put this into a painting?

I sit. I respond. I study.
I sit. I respond. I make.

Borrowed Language, Personal Mythology

This process — of collecting, responding, and creating — is heavily influenced by what surrounds me. I draw on the visual language of girlhood, where sweetness, softness, and unease often overlap. I borrow iconography from memory and pop culture, from the imagery that raised me and continues to haunt or comfort me.

Over time, these figures and symbols conflate into versions of myself — characters that blur the line between personal and cultural memory. In doing so, I cultivate my own personal mythology, a collection of repeated images that serve as both bible and methodology, the foundation from which I build and the framework I question.

Bruised Hands Extended

Every painting becomes a hand — bruised and soft — reaching outward. It’s an extension of my own theological study, my attempt to make sense of the world through repeated images, inherited stories, and personal revelations.

What I hope is that the hand extends far enough to reach the viewer, offering them a chance to hold it, if they want to. To take these fragments — the bruises, the bubble remnants, the stories I haven’t finished writing — and see if any of it resonates with their own cavern of images, contact, and memory.

What they do with it after that is entirely up to them.