“My mother often says, No te alcanzan los ojos, or “your eyes are not sufficient”, to describe a beauty that transcends sight.

I began to paint my eyes for the first time to understand their shape and the nuance of a feature that signified my estranged relationship with my Asian ancestry. After painting this shape repeatedly for six months I learned to trace the lines with my eyes closed—looking inward. That which looks cannot see itself unless it paints.

I began to imagine an infinite landscape and a world too overwhelming to experience: a Blakean sublime of awe and terror.

My works, like portals, let me hold a gaze into the unknown during the act of painting. The distance between my gaze and the surface mirrors the distance between myself, my ancestors, and a homeland—an abstracted longing.”