“What if?” is a phrase that cycles through my brain again and again. As someone who suffers with anxiety, I find myself spending my time agonizing over the unknown. We are biologically wired to have anxieties. Fear is a state induced by a threat to our well-being, whether real or potential. Anxiety becomes its own threat when it consumes our state of mind. I often find myself reflecting on how I can shift my perspective, turning “what if” into “what is.”

This mindset informs my paintings. I’m drawn to the human form and how movement distorts it. In an animation class, I discovered smear frames; images that show motion through exaggerated, stretched features. I began to use similar distortions in my painting to capture motion and emotion, like visual echoes in long-exposure photography.

Self-portraiture is also central to my work. As a woman, I feel the constant pressure to appear soft, small, and pleasing. But I am not always those things and I shouldn’t have to be. Painting myself is an act of reclamation. I find paintings to be beautiful, so if I paint myself as I truly am, in whatever form I choose to exist, I will always see myself reflected as worthy of being seen that way in life.

My work reflects the beauty of ordinary moments and the inner thoughts that accompany them. It’s a practice in appreciating what is, rather than fearing what might be. In doing so, I hope to invite others to release the grip of “what if” and embrace the calm of “what is.”