Bittersweet
36" × 48" | Mixed media on canvas

The subject of this painting holds up her phone in a mirror, caught in a moment of quiet self-possession. Against a background of organic shapes evoking the wood paneling in the reference shot, she looks content, happy. But the title tells you there's more beneath the surface.

This bathroom selfie was taken at a friend's wedding, in a moment of joy. Not long after, she returned to that same room overcome by grief, missing her recently deceased father. There, a weeping stranger joined her; and two people who didn't know each other comforted one another, dried their tears, and embraced before rejoining the celebration. It's a portrait of how joy and grief can live in the same breath, and of the unexpected connection that finds us in our hardest moments.

Built in my signature style — a collage underpainting layered with oil paint — this is assembled from a variety of fragments: artisan papers, patterned scraps, and found materials that build her likeness piece by piece. The shimmering strip beneath the mirror is shiny cardboard salvaged from an old gift box; the rustic wood below it, a patchwork of collage papers. Woven quietly into the composition is the otherworldly outline of a figure, placed as an honoring of the father she carries with her.

Bittersweet is part of my ongoing series Portraits of Liberation, Transformation and Imagination, in which members of my community share images that reflect how they are witnessing and processing this moment in our nation's history. Drawing on James Baldwin's idea that suffering is not what isolates us but a bridge that connects us, this piece is a reminder that we never navigate any of it alone — and that it is in community that we find ways to live, to imagine new worlds, and to begin building them.