There’s a political agenda in my work. It’s sometimes subtle and other times expressed more overtly. While I’m advocating for a more compassionate immigration system, fundamentally, the work is about connecting the viewer emotionally to the people in a painting or drawing. I take care to capture facial expressions, gestures, and personalities. I often rely on the additive and reductive process in painting and drawing to find the portrait and the figure. While I fully render some parts of the figure, I also like to use loose marks to emphasize movement, activate the space, but also as a vehicle for expressing myself and connecting to the person in the portrait.