Cultivating Joy in My Room (2023)

Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas 

70" x 86"

Artist's Note About This Painting:

Having a space of your own is important. I didn't have my own room until I was 20 years old. I didn't know what it was like to truly alone with myself until a scholarship earned me a room of my own while I was in college. There was so much freedom in having my own room and being an introvert, I learned to love it. This work is a frozen time lapse of the ways I allow myself to experience joy in my own space through books, music, art, orgasms, nudity, and so on. It's a visual poem to protecting my joy and peace in the comfort of my own space; the only place I can truly be myself. My home is a sanctuary, a temple, really. And I'm it's goddess. My space and my joy are sacred.