I create art to stay grounded through the chaos of both my past and present and to give back to myself the childhood I lost. My linework and brush strokes are typically scribbly or gestural, characterizing my style, communicating emotion, and controlling the chaos. My art must build an intimate relationship between my audience and me. My use of color is dynamic and atmospheric and aims to invoke a feeling, often nostalgia. I primarily make digital illustrations, comics, and paintings, but when working traditionally, my favorite tools are soft pastels, charcoal, printmaking, and oil. I learned and practiced many different techniques and mediums during my undergraduate studies, and because of this, I now have a more comprehensive range of creative abilities. After graduating summa cum laude, I started freelance work for over a hundred clients. I have also sold my work as prints, keychains, and stickers. I’d like to hone my skills in traditional and digital mediums and find new and inventive ways to combine the two. My work often centers around dolls, which comforted me most in childhood. Through dolls, I access my inner child and allow her to be free and to play again. A doll can be anything: a window to your childhood, a marionette to project onto, or an object representing the endless chase for perfection and its subsequent plastic lifestyle. Artists like Louis William Wain inspire me in how he comforted himself through his mental illness by drawing cats—Anatola Howard in how their comics and illustrations utilize stylization and color to create something earnest and atmospheric.