My father, mother, and grandfather were all painters. It is in my blood. I serve painting as a mediator, to seek its righteousness and find its transcendent power it holds.

I paint in a traditional oil glazing method which came about through my faith. This is a devotional approach to painting. The process is one of ritual. I carry out every painting in the same method, it is the repetitiveness that makes it a ritual. Painting has always been a inner and physical sanctuary where I can carry out my inner expression about humanity. The technique I work in requires multiple opaque, semi opaque and translucent layers of paint to be built upon one another with a dominance of brown and black in the pallete; this method of painting was the main oil painting technique in Western art from the early Renaissance to the post revolutionary period. I taught myself this centuries old technique through constant art historical research and hours of critical observation of old paintings. It requires draftsmanship, a knowledge of the direction of light, figuration and classical composition.

Through looking into spirituality of Roman Catholicism; I take inspiration from traditional iconography and biblical narratives. In some pieces they are revisited by including people of color into the roles that have traditionally been dominated by white people. It is the representation of cultures stemming from western colonialism that are under or not represented.

Further exploring that, surreal figurative compositions I explore themes of philosophy and spirituality and create work in which the viewer is transported to another realm.

Using traditional painting as a vehicle, I translate and elevate my sitters to a position of recognition, since the historical role of classical European painting has always been that of institutional colonial power. I myself paint in the tradition of that, a classical European. I however am not. I am a person of color from the Bay Area. Coming from that background, it is essential to me to paint underrepresented populations that were affected by Western Colonialism. I am appropriating traditional European painting techniques and subverting them to represent those of the conquered.