My work opens a platform for discussion on the topics of resilience, trauma and cultural displacement. I seek to bring awareness to the emotional baggage and the struggle that survivors have to conceal in daily life. I have been a part of the highly diverse city of Hoboken since 2013 and have been lucky to meet so many who have been through prejudice, discrimination, abuse and even war or genocide in their birth countries. These people do not share openly about their life experience but instead suppress the pain to move on with daily life.
My large-scale oil portraits that have recently been transformed into street art in the cities of Berlin, Milan and Larnaca are composed of individuals behind masks, communicating human strength and offering empathy to those who connect through a warm, deep eye contact. The viewer of any race, age or gender is able to relate to the masked faces in the works as the design of the masks are carefully put together to hide these differences and focus on the equity of humanity. It is extremely meaningful for me to offer this work back to the streets of Hoboken.
