Oil Pastel, Gouache, and Acrylic on 12” x 12” Canvas | 2025

Comics are a massive influence in my work with Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes and Larson's The Far Side serving as some of my original inspirations. 

Ruff Stuff began as a sketch inspired by a real-life dog walker I saw in Griffith Park. Several months later, I revisited the sketch and brought it to canvas as the first painting of my "Driveway Residency". 

With this work, I began with an acrylic underpainting. Once dried, I used water-soluble oil pastels to illustrate the scene. I enjoy using oil pastel on canvas as I think you can render a sort of storybook-quality to the final piece. I then outlined the characters in gouache as I like the softness of black gouache compared to black acrylic. 

In comics, panels represent both space and time. I enclose each work in it's own universe with a stylized panel/border as the final act of the painting.

Oil Pastel, Gouache, and Acrylic on 20” x 24” Canvas | 2025

Fuerte y Siempre is a piece inspired by the Valentine's Day Dance that I was lucky enough to witness in Oaxaca Centro, Mexico. It was my goal to capture the palpable amount of romance in the air created by the dancers, the band, and even the onlookers who watched the dance and swayed side by side with each other. 

As I was watching the dance, I was especially mesmerized by the marimba player and the drum player, who each kept the night flowing with fantastical rhythm. 

I wrote and incorporated a Spanish haiku to honor the country where I was born and to put into words the love that I felt that night. When translated, the haiku reads “My love for you is like Moon and Sea. Strong and Always.”

Oil Pastel and Acrylic on 11” x 14” Paper | 2025

I have a deep love for cafes, people- watching, and silly things. From these loves came Le Café Goob. This piece is a rework of an earlier watercolor piece that I completed in 2024. I wanted to flesh out the scene in more detail and in a different medium as a sort of gauge of my artistic progress.

Oil Pastel, Gouache, and Acrylic on 18” x 24” Canvas | 2025

A theme at the core of my works is the concept of sonder. To provide a brief description, sonder is the realization that each human has a life as rich, joyful, devastating, and complex as our own. It can be difficult to keep this concept in mind when you’re driving by countless vehicles on a 5-lane highway or walking past a group of slow walkers on a crosswalk. 

With Places & People, I am injecting humor into the concept to portray the wackiness that lives within us all.