“ShapeShifter” emerged from an intuitive drawing process rather than a predetermined composition. It was uncovered gradually, with forms, lines, colors, and emotional cues surfacing in their own organic way. Faces, structures, and symbolic shapes appeared and interconnected over time, forming a complex visual ecosystem. At the center is a small, quiet figure—an origin point from which everything radiates. The surrounding elements reflect the sensory overload we absorb long before we can understand it: layered, chaotic, and shaped by early influences. The faces and forms aren’t characters but fragments of a psychic terrain—echoes, impulses, and potential selves shaped by shifting emotional patterns. They surface the way consciousness does: fleeting, unstable, and without fixed identity. ShapeShifter is a cognitive map—a glimpse into consciousness in the act of becoming. It offers a portrait of an inner state informed by sensation, memory, instinct, and imagination. The piece is at once a world, a microcosm of that world, and a single moment within it—fluid, shifting, and continually reinterpreted depending on where the viewer enters.

These portraits usually start with a shape, a mood, or a spark of attitude. I exaggerate and distort features as they speak to whatever personality is trying to surface. The faces aren’t based on real people; I think of them as humorous, slightly absurd versions of characters, with enough emotion in them to feel both strange and oddly familiar. They sometimes feel personal. That’s why I think of them as self-portraits—small flashes of whatever emotion I’m carrying at the moment, manifesting into a figure. The beauty is the portraits feel open-ended, as if there’s always one more waiting to surface.

“Totem” grew out of lingering impressions from a trip through Vietnam—snake forms, star shapes, and the deep reds and golds that seemed ubiquitous throughout the country. Those visuals stayed with me when I built this piece, and the figure emerged from them, settling into ceremonial posture that feels both constructed and alive. It’s part guardian, part deity—an image that hints at ritual or ancestry without belonging to any specific tradition. Compared to my more sprawling works, Totem is more concentrated. It compresses its energy into a single body. It feels less like a character I invented and more like a form I uncovered—something shaped by travel, memories, and the language of symbols I’m still trying to understand. In that sense, making it became a quiet way of honoring the experience that inspired it.