Although creative my whole life, I first really discovered my passion for fine art at the age of 18 after taking a classical realism (drawing and painting) atelier programme in Hawaii. At this time, however, I was committed to pursuing a career in the international environmental/humanitarian field, and so completed my university degree in Sustainable Development and Conflict Resolution. I went on to work with the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Equipe Cousteau, PERSGA (The Regional Organisation For the Conservation of the Environment in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden), and ArabEnv, where my work primarily focused on environmental and social sustainability projects in the Red Sea region.
Having grown up around the world (Indonesia, Oman, Kenya and Hawaii), I came to believe that a career in the international NGO world was the best way to contribute to improving the current condition of the planet. I now believe that “following your bliss” (whatever that may be) is perhaps the most meaningful way to be of service. While working in Jordan and Sudan, all I could think about were the paintings and art projects I wanted to create. And I understood that, for me, art was the means to allow me to explore the many inspirations I find in this world, from its people and rich cultural traditions and histories, to the beauty and intrigue found in science and the natural world, to the esoteric and cosmological underpinnings that make this existence so magnificent and wonderfully mysterious, and of course to the discoveries, realities and idiosyncrasies of my own internal universe.
In 2008 I left the Middle East to study drawing at the Grand Central Academy with Jacob Collins in New York for one year. While in New York I was active in various social and educational art engagements, including working as a teaching assistant for a MOMA Teen Programmes art class, helping to organise art exhibits of Iraqi refugee artists who were living in Syria, and working in an art gallery for Outsider art.
During 2015 - 2019, I completed several short courses at Studio Escalier in France (with Michelle Tully and Timothy Stotz), to strengthen my skills in portraiture and figurative drawing and painting.
In addition to living and painting between Paris and Hawaii, I work part-time with Biomimicry Europa coordinating a reforestation and sustainable livelihoods project with marginalised Mayan communities in the Yucatan Peninsula.
In July of 2018 I participated in the Schmidt Ocean Institute's Artist-at-Sea Programme, where scientists and artists collaborated aboard the R/V Falkor during a seafloor mapping transit in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. This collaboration culminated in an exhibition of the artwork inspired by the experience, which was held at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Paintings resulting from this experience were also featured in Art Basel Miami in 2023 at the Phillip & Patricia Frost Museum of Science and the Miami Beach Convention Centre in collaboration with UNESCO.
My work can be found in private collections across the United States as well as in Mexico, the United Kingdom, Italy, Estonia, Spain, South Africa and Australia; in Nohea Gallery in Honolulu; in the 2017 Luciano Benetton Collection's Imago Mundi publication, Aloha Spirit: Contemporary Artists from Hawaii; and in the Schmidt Family Foundation's private collection.
My Story
