Cumulative Work 

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Affiliations:

Photographer: Ernesto Brett Dennison 

Models: Noah and Grey 

“But It Smells of Lavender” is the first piece in my Religious Ties series—a body of work that looks at how religious upbringing can quietly shape queer intimacy. The painting was inspired by Brion, an openly gay man whose story reflects a tension I’ve often explored in my own life: the pull between identity and expectation.

At first, the piece feels warm—inviting patterns, soft color, a quiet kind of domesticity. But underneath, there’s a weight. The man in the painting has married out of obligation, not love. Her hand lifts his chin gently, but his eyes say something else entirely—distant, conflicted, and quietly asking to be seen.

The background patterns hint at tradition and the quiet architecture of faith. His posture holds both restraint and longing. This work, like much of what I create, is about what we hide to survive—and the slow, painful work of becoming who we are.

Affiliations:

Photographer: Ernesto Brett Dennison 

Model: Brion Cephus

In Of All Our Desires, I explore the complicated, often painful intersection between sensuality, self-perception, and religious indoctrination. This piece is both a reclamation and a confrontation—a visual essay on how the body becomes a site of internalized shame when viewed through the lens of fundamentalist beliefs.

Constructed with oil paint and a carefully collaged backdrop of sourced wallpaper patterns, the setting evokes a sense of intimate theatricality—a space that feels at once familiar and staged. The wallpapers, with their ornate repetition and vintage echo, serve as metaphor for the doctrines I was raised under: rigid, omnipresent, and embedded into the very walls of my understanding of self.

Laying bare—literally and emotionally—I painted myself in a moment of open, unguarded longing. This posture of vulnerability is not just about physical desire, but a deeper yearning: to be seen, to be whole, to be free from the whispered warnings of sin and consequence. As a child raised in religious settings, desire was something to suppress. It was indulgent, selfish, even dangerous. It was not to be explored, let alone celebrated.

Creating this piece was a radical act of self-portraiture. Not because it flaunts the body, but because it dignifies it. I allowed myself to exist in a state of want without apology. I made the conscious choice to depict my body as soft, warm, and alive—not as a vessel of guilt, but as a site of agency.

In many ways, this painting became a portal back to myself. Each brushstroke pushed against years of internalized doctrine. Each layer of paint and paper unwrapped some thread of inherited shame. The result is a work that holds both sensuality and sorrow, both power and pain. A stillness, interrupted by the pulse of reclamation.

This piece ties into recurring themes in my practice: religious trauma, mental health, and the long, messy journey of untangling the stories we were told about our worth—and our wants.

This piece was inspired by my mother’s story. My parents were unable to have children for 7 years before my brother, during this time my mother experienced two separate miscarriages. This painting tells the story of a woman who falls pregnant. As she grapples with the idea of becoming a mother, she loses the baby. I wanted to capture the moment after the miscarriage, she lays on the floor in her bathroom in disbelief. This painting is meant to capture the conflicting feeling of both loss and relief. It is about a choice that was stolen before it could even be made.

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Affiliations:

Photographer: Ernesto Brett Dennison 

Model: Makala Aayana

There once was a woman that lived in a world that was too small for her.

The walls were too compact

and the colors?

Far too dull.

As time went on she began to grow.

As she did, what was once merely different,

now became painfully compact.

Desperate to return to comfort, she searched for a solution.

She landed on maintaining her size, rather than growing.

So there she stayed contentedly.

After all, how could she question where she was?

It maintained comfort and she fit just right for now.

As the years passed, she felt the weight of her sacrifice.

She wondered if there was more to her tiny, dull, little world.

The tension within her grew until suddenly with a great explosion, she erupted her world.

What was once small and dull and barely enough splintered into fragments.

But the girl?

She grew and grew and grew.

She couldn’t find anything to grab onto now that she had shattered what she knew, but she continued her evolution.

Until Finally?

A light, small and almost unnoticeable,

suddenly appeared.

She squinted her eyes and reached for it and as she touched it, it began to grow.

Slowly, steadily, it expanded over the years.

It left behind the brightest of colors.

Until finally the girl—who had made herself small for so long—saw the results of her growth.

Here, it was incomplete and messy and ever-growing, but for the first time…

She fit.

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Growing Pains is a self-reflective work created entirely from imagination, inspired by a poem about a woman who outgrows the small, colorless world she once called home. Though not directly autobiographical, the piece was born during a time when I felt emotionally stuck—knowing I needed to move, but fearing the cost of change.

The fractured composition reflects this inner tension. Her face, split into vibrant and muted planes, captures the struggle between staying small for the sake of comfort and embracing the chaos of growth. The background, layered with abstract shapes and clashing colors, echoes a world being dismantled and rebuilt.

This painting is about the pain of transformation: the mourning of what was safe, the messiness of becoming, and the courage it takes to break free. In choosing discomfort over stagnation, the figure finally begins to see a world shaped by her own expansion—imperfect, incomplete, and fully her own.

They see a tear slip down my cheek,

 And think it bears my soul, 

 But There’s a wave deep within,

 Needing to crash ashore. 

 To cover the earth, 

With frightful rage.

 To take back what it’s due. 

 To crash and tear and scream and kick,

“IS THIS WHAT I’M MEANT TO DO?”

With inspiration pulled from the sitting model, the focus of this piece was directed towards creating a likeness both materially and spiritually. This piece is meant to not only speak to the personality of the model, but to also serve as a study in color theory. By using minimally mixed colors, this piece maintains the highest possible level of vibrancy while also translating depth and value. 

When creating this piece I was at first intrigued by the technicality of the textures and image I was painting, but eventually I began to be intrigued by this concept of knowing versus understanding. Throughout my life, I have learned from friends, families, and colleagues but as look back on all of the knowledge I gained from them, I realized that I never UNDERSTOOD it until I experienced things for myself. As I thought about this, I noticed the painting slowly began to shift and take a new shape. I wanted the figure to sit with an intensity that communicated a desire to understand fully what she knew conceptually. 

This piece combines elements of both cubism and classic painting styles. By creating two separate perspectives of the model, this piece is meant to dive into the mind of the model. Perspective dictates our reality and by playing with perspective in this piece, the viewer will gain the ability to view this model in a different light. A light that is dictated by the perspective through which the piece is viewed. 

For the longest time I craved flowers. 

 The type that someone picks delicately,

 Because it reminds them of you.

 But as I grew,

 No one picked me flowers. 

The reality of it pricked me like thorns to flesh, 

And I held on to that hurt,

 Until finally, as I walked through a meadow one day,

 I picked up a flower that reminded me of myself. 

 It was bright and unique,

 With pedals so delicate I could imagine myself crushing them with a touch.

 So I protected that flower viciously. 

 In the ways I had always wished to be protected.

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This piece is meant to dive into the ways in which we view ourselves and how it is not always aligned with the ways in which others experience us. This can cause dissonance, confusion, and--above all else--an insatiable desire to see ourselves clearly. This piece speaks to the moments in between what is known. The figure represents a dysphoric state in which the figure experience

This Self-portrait was created with the intent of translating the very real emotions I was experiencing while painting. The viewer should catch the ways in which my frustration translated in the brush stroked and general techniques used to create this piece. 

“Sunday Afternoon: Charlotte” is part of a Tryptic that dives into the tranquil energy of a Sunday afternoon. Often this day is seen as a time for relaxation; a break from the realities that tether the workforce. It’s a time to forget the anxieties that will return as the sun does on Monday morning.

“Sunday Afternoon: Anna” is part of a Tryptic that dives into the tranquil energy of a Sunday afternoon. Often this day is seen as a time for relaxation; a break from the realities that tether the workforce. It’s a time to forget the anxieties that will return as the sun does on Monday morning.