In my most recent body of work titled, In Search of the Garden, I sought to communicate the quest for identity through illustrative narratives employing formal concepts such as gestural line and saturated color. By utilizing relatable characters and wild landscapes formed by lighting and mark, I wished to explore the lengths we go to and the worlds we come across in our journey to find out who we really are.

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Using oil paint as a base, I employed loose gestural sketches of oil pastel to bring together environments that surround a central figure. In three of my works, Abba’s Child, Wandering, and Homecoming, I significantly developed the faces and the hands of the figures. I wished for the figures to seem grounded in our reality, so viewers could more easily project themselves into the place of the characters. However, only so much empathy can be cultivated through body language, so the use of the textured, active lines of pastel aid in raising questions of curiosity, fear, and hope. 

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In Abba’s Child, a field of golden sunflowers cradle a lounging woman studying a childish drawing of a heart-shaped flower. The small flower floats within the grass, detached from the rest of the garden. Out of all the beautifully wild and carefully rendered blooms of the garden, the woman fixes her attention on this flower, that does not match, and in comparison, is crudely drawn in pastel. This dissonance creates the space for questions: what do we value, and can we value childlikeness within ourselves? 

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Wandering forgoes flowers in favor of a dense and wild forest of red, spire-like trees. In the foreground, a little girl stands alone as a ghostly background of mint green sets the overgrown plant life alight in an eerie glow. Dwarfed by the trees and brush, it is unclear if the girl can find her way out. The title, Wandering, adds a layer of distress to the piece, as perhaps the girl has no idea where she intends to go. Together, these elements help to describe the pressure of trying to find our home within a confusing and often dangerous world. 

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Finally, Homecoming depicts a woman surging up from a grave into a vibrant clearing of playfully drawn oil pastel flowers and springing foliage. Leaving behind a version of herself lying dead in the grave, the woman looks forward, bathed in a golden light raining from above. The contrast present between the shadowed grave and the illuminated woman elicits feelings of freedom, accomplishment and joy. Reborn, this electrifying world appears to give the woman hope for new life and adventure. 

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In all three oil paintings, the portrayal of the figures and the scribbles of greenery create worlds that invite the viewer to forget their current life and empathize with another. Like any good story In Search of the Garden chances to use this escape as a vehicle of reflection and investigation into the age-old question, of “who am I?” and “where do I find meaning?” Within this body of work, each brushstroke becomes a word, each swooping line a sentence, coming together to form another chapter to add to this much larger narrative of human longing to know more about ourselves, each other and the world we occupy.