Video (1:45)

When ink and water are set to motion, they spring to life, unfolding narratives, softening the edges of drawings, revealing the inner mush in the subject matter which, in this case, are eyelashes, those mindless moments in which we touch ourselves, intensely alive, seeking refuge internally

Acrylic and ink on plexiglass, fabric (22” x 28”)

Video (5:38)

This experimental short is a collaboration with Patricia Bedregal Velasco de Avila, an amazing musician and childhood friend who lives and works in La Paz, Bolivia. She composed the music and I did the animation. The musical score features her at the piano and Roberto Morales on the saxophones, all mixed into a chamber piece by Studio 66. My ink drawings respond to the music, together unfolding a renewed tale about love, death and the cycles of life.

Ink and color pencil on paper (22” x 30”)

Ink and color pencil on paper (22” x 30”)

Held by the Mattie Kelley Arts Center permanent collection

Ink and watercolor on paper (22” x 30”)

Sumi ink on paper (18” x 24”) (private collection)

Video (2:06)

Ink and color pencil on paper (22” x 30”)

Ink and color pencil on paper (22” x 30”)

those moments when we mindlessly touch our face

Video (5:08)

Undertow came about when I was hiking on a drizzly day along the Patuxent River in Maryland. While I have always been a frequent hiker, the pandemic and disturbing events of this past year have made being outdoors even more important to me, distilling my thoughts, dissipating my worries, endlessly inspiring my ink drawings. While on this hike, I recorded the sound of the river and drips falling near me. As I was standing still, I noticed I could see my own reflection on a puddle, all bundled up, like an assailable warrior of sorts. This moment inspired this two-part filmed drawing about 2020.

Video documentation 3:24

Thinking about our “edges,” I set out to draw portraits, initially of myself, and then of others whose photographs caught my attention on the internet. I began each drawing by placing on the paper a puddle of the most basic of elements, which comprises most of our bodies, and which we share with the rest of nature—water. Mindful of the water puddles’ physical edges—their borders and surface tension—I drew mostly with inks. As the water’s expressive power transformed my rhythmic mark making, I felt as if I was watching a story unfold on the paper, a narrative about the fluid and murky nature of identity and memory, freshly extracting from my present-day subjects older, maybe even ancient, archetypes of sorts, echoing back to me the last line in José Antonio Rodríguez’ poem In the Presence of Sunlight—"I’ve written about this so many times.”

Many thanks to Aneta Georgievska-Shine for her advice curating this show.