Based on an old family photograph from the 1970s, Tinted Lenses is an intimate 9 x 9 inch painting on a wood block panel. It captures the distinct, hazy nostalgia of a classic car interior so vividly that you can almost smell the vintage upholstery.

Coin Operated is based on a family photo from the 1970s. It captures a classic childhood joy of coin operated rides outside of grocery stores.

Patterned Ground is inspired by a family photo of the artists brother and parents sitting behind their iconic and believed Chrysler New Yorker in the late 1970s. It touches on nostalgia and classic 1970s Canadians through the eyes of newly arrived immigrants.

Based on a quiet moment beneath a tree, Shadow Patterns explores how shifting light can alter perception. The figure is partially obscured by the shadows of leaves, creating a surface that feels both present and unstable. What begins as a recognizable scene slowly dissolves into pattern, where body and ground become difficult to separate.

A painting drawn from a family photograph, Charline Motel explores immigrant arrival, shared nostalgia, and the everyday rituals of travel and belonging.

This 30 × 40 inch oil painting was created in response to a prompt inviting artists to engage with a work from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ permanent collection. I chose Simeon the God Receiver by Kehinde Wiley, drawn to the way Wiley situates contemporary bodies within ornate, historically loaded decorative frameworks.

In this self-portrait, my figure rests on an Armenian carpet, a surface that carries cultural memory, domestic ritual, and lineage. The body appears to melt into the carpet’s patterns, blurring the boundary between figure and ground. This dissolution suggests both belonging and erasure, a quiet tension between being held by heritage and being absorbed by it.

The work reflects my ongoing interest in family archives, diaspora, and the ways identity is shaped through inherited spaces and objects. By embedding my own body within the carpet, the painting becomes a meditation on visibility, cultural memory, and the fragile line between selfhood and collective history.

Beneath the Surface: Psychological Portraits in Domestic Space transforms old family photographs into large-scale paintings that explore unease within the familiar. One of the central images is based on a 1970s photograph of my mother sitting alone beside a deserted motel pool. At first glance, the scene feels calm and still, yet beneath that stillness is something exposed and suspended. That tension lies at the heart of the work.

Beneath the Surface: Psychological Portraits in Domestic Space transforms old family photographs into large-scale paintings that explore unease within the familiar. One of the central images is based on a 1970s photograph of my mother sitting alone beside a deserted motel pool. At first glance, the scene feels calm and still, yet beneath that stillness is something exposed and suspended. That tension lies at the heart of the work.