I traded one life for another, exchanging the familiar landscape of the Pacific Northwest for a new home in North Carolina. These paintings are not records of lived Southern memories, but explorations of a place I am still coming to know. Through humble objects and familiar forms, I search for connection to the stories, traditions, and visual language that surround me.
The objects that appear throughout this work are ordinary, yet they carry extraordinary weight. They hold traces of labor, ritual, celebration, nourishment, and care. They speak to the ways we gather, the ways we belong, and the ways memory settles into the things we live with every day. Rather than depicting specific people or places, these paintings use familiar forms as stand-ins for experiences that cannot be easily named; feelings of home, inheritance, absence, comfort, longing, and connection.
Throughout the collection, themes of abundance, belonging, sustenance, and remembrance emerge and overlap. Some works reflect the beauty and generosity found in everyday life. Others consider the spaces we occupy, the traditions we inherit, and the quiet evidence of human presence. Still others explore what remains after memory begins to soften; fragments, traces, and impressions that persist even when details are lost.
Drawing inspiration from folk art, vernacular craft traditions, pottery, and handmade objects, I embrace imperfection, asymmetry, and the visible hand of the maker. Simplified forms and layered surfaces allow these subjects to exist somewhere between observation and memory, between history and invention. The paintings are less concerned with documenting a specific place than with exploring how meaning accumulates through use, repetition, and care.
At its core, Southern Memories is not simply about the South. The South provides the landscape and visual language, but the work is ultimately an exploration of home; how it is built, remembered, imagined, and carried forward. Through painting, I create spaces where personal and collective histories intersect, inviting viewers to bring their own memories, stories, and sense of belonging into the work.
