Wildlife and nature are paths to our essential selves, often obscured in this highly technical world. I hope that my creative work stirs deep connections between viewers and the natural world, animating curiosity and care for the rare and untamable elements within and around us.
I am a Connecticut-based artist, organizer, and arts educator. My work focuses mostly on the natural world. Curiosity about the natural world and how things are made drives most of what I do. Recent events have me turning from a solitary studio practice to more collaborative and public work, especially around themes of joy, wildlife, and nature.
In the natural world, I see some of life’s starkest contrasts and greatest wonders. My paintings look at the individuality and complexity of living things and how they exist in an unpredictable and chaotic world. My process echoes this tumultuous interdependence, bringing together specific and detailed description with energetic and spontaneous elements. Through this process, I attempt to approach the beauty and strangeness of our world and its ever changing elements.
I earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. While there I studied in Rome for a year. After graduating, I moved to St. John in the US Virgin Islands, where I made and sold art, and opened a small gallery with another artist. One year later, I moved to New York City, worked in a mural house, earned an MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art, and with friends opened and ran a cooperative gallery on East Seventh Street in the basement of a Ukrainian church.
Drawn by a live/work opportunity, I moved to Connecticut. There I joined - and for a year, led - the Loft Artists Association, developing my art and helping to create and deliver free art workshops and experiences to the public. I also became a teaching artist with the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield. I created art classes and exhibits for middle schoolers in Norwalk through the Silvermine Guild of Artists’ outreach program, and ran a free choice art program for local middle schoolers in Stamford’s public charter school.
During this time, I continued my own creative work. I exhibited in Connecticut and New York, including at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center and the Lockwood Mathews Museum in Norwalk, had work added to private and public art collections, including at Stamford Hospital, SH’s Bennet Cancer Center, Yale New Haven Hospital’s Park Avenue Medical Center, and Sacred Heart University, and included in the movies “The Bounty Hunter” with Gerard Butler and Jennifer Aniston and “Something Borrowed” with Kate Hudson and Ginnifer Goodwin.
Residencies played a key role in extending my educational experience and creative output. As New Canaan Library’s second artist in residence, I exhibited and offered nature and conservation themed art workshops to the public, and through the National Parks Artist in Residence program spent a month living and painting at Weir Farm in Wilton in 2019, where I now lead nature based art workshops. Most recently, The Department of the Interior Museum acquired my painting "Tree Looking Towards Burlingham House" for their collection, where it will be included in an upcoming exhibit showcasing the National Parks Artists in Residence program.
In August 2020 I installed a 110 foot mural at the Bennett Cancer Center. This began a shift in my work towards public art and collaboration, and I co-founded a non-profit, Stamford Murals, with RiseUp for Arts, to further public art and youth mentoring in my city. Along with two youth artists, I have installed five public murals in my city and organized free mural arts festivals for the public. To see work in progress & more, follow me on instagram!
