My works are self-portraits. When I was a child, I was sexually taken advantage of. I kept that secret for most of my youth, until my early twenties, when I broke the silence. The fear of contracting a venereal disease lingers within me. To have both sexual anxiety and the need to satisfy my desires became the basis of my art. My pieces explore themes of innocence lost, sexuality, and trauma. Naive, yet depraved, my figures exist, often alone, in imaginary spaces. I call them Thirsties. Within this psychological desolation, the Thirsties transverse one’s deepest desires from the middle of the night to broad daylight. I attempt to show the audience what it is like to have lived in a world where childhood was taken away too soon and perversion was unwillingly experienced.