Artist Statement:

This exhibition displays my cultural, ethnic, and religious identity through a series of portraits from those respective parts of my identity. In this exhibit there are representations of my Danish, Mexican, and Irish immigrant foremothers, alongside a Biblical Galilee woman representing the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious and cultural aspects of my family and myself. These powerful, confrontational women transcend the patriarchal stereotype of the submissive, obedient, and polite women. I also utilized found objects instead of canvases revealing the process of time and reinvigorating the life of these objects before I painted them. In addition, incorporating the palette I used for all five paintings exposes the process of making the portraits. This emphasis on the history of the objects I painted on, and my own addition to that history, reflects an exploratory journey of my ethnic, cultural, and religious familial and personal identity that comes to a finale in my self-portrait.