Behind the Canvas
These pieces started as thoughts I couldn’t shake. Things I noticed all around us, as we grew older and fell into more predictable patterns. This is a collection about modern life, masked joy, and the things we consume that quietly consume us.
Each painting is a snapshot of contradiction nostalgia wrapped in harm, comfort hiding cost, freedom shaped by invisible hands. Together, they map out the emotional clutter of living in a world where everything’s for sale, including your time, your habits, your peace of mind.
Here’s the story behind each one:
1. Heritage Blend
What once sat in the pockets of our fathers now fits in the palms of their sons. Heritage Blend reimagines a Marlboro box a symbol of rugged American cool now filled with Juul pods. It’s a generational remix: same addiction, different delivery system. We traded cowboy masculinity for techy minimalism, but the craving stayed. This piece is about the illusion of progress — the packaging changes, but the pull? That’s still passed down.
2. RX: Joy
We live in a culture that prescribes feelings. RX: Joy is a pill bottle promising happiness, but there’s blood on the cap a reminder that nothing emotional comes without cost. It explores the growing reliance on pharmaceutical solutions to emotional pain and the quiet violence of commodified wellness. This piece doesn’t shame, it asks. What’s the line between healing and hiding?
3. Sink or Swig
A rubber duck, upside down in a bottle of rum. Childhood, submerged. Sink or Swig is a piece about escapism the messy, blurry kind. It's about what we drown in the name of staying afloat. I think a lot about the moment you realize drinking isn’t just social anymore. When the line between fun and numb starts to dissolve. This one is personal. It’s about the quiet ways we self-soothe when no one’s watching.
4. Terms & Conditions
The final piece in the series is Terms & Conditions, a brain impaled with tech flags: Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google. It’s a portrait of a mind quietly conquered. Not by force, but by feeds, swipes, and dopamine hits. We didn’t read the fine print we just clicked "accept." This one’s about the colonization of attention and how, somewhere along the way, our brains became real estate for billion-dollar brands.
These works aren’t meant to lecture. They’re confessions, really. About what it feels like to live in a time where joy is sold in bottles, peace is in your screen time report, and the past keeps showing up in new wrappers.
Thanks for looking and reading.