UC San Diego

My work has always arrived from a deeply personal place. During my undergraduate studies, my professor said my thesis project felt like an exorcism. I was trying to find a way to say something but not quite saying it, circling around painful experiences obliquely but not wanting to commit to putting it down on paper. So much left unsaid, so much weighed down.

During my time here as a graduate student, I’ve found a way to find joy, and to let things go. It’s important to turn a painful or difficult personal experience into something that can fly, something that communicates the depths of any despair fully but that can

also ultimately find a place of redemption and joy. It’s allowed me to make the kind of work that lives on and that I desire to revisit and continue.