ARTIST STATEMENT: My work explores the layered experience of identity and individuality and the collective nature of being a woman and a mother. I have used birds and flowers that as metaphors to articulate the quiet, often unseen complexities of nurturing, growth, and self-discovery.

Birds, with their fragile and free nature, express my own tensions between care and autonomy, solitude and connection. Representing both the instinct to protect and the desire to take flight — to create space for myself beyond the many roles I inhabit. The flowers symbolise cycles of life, body, and art-making. Together they reflect transformation and resilience. Over the last few years these cycles have taken on new meaning as I navigate caring not only for my children but also for an aging parent. Watching both beginnings and endings unfold deepens my understanding of what it means to hold space for others while still seeking my own growth.

My process is contemplative and intimate, layering charcoal in a push/pull dynamic to reveal inky colours and textures as a way of making sense of myself. The act of creating becomes a way of reclaiming stillness and presence in a world that demands constant attention.

Through this body of work I hope to express the quiet strength found in womanhood through care, the complexity of identity, and the beauty that emerges from both solitude and connection.