Disclosed.
2023

By the time I was eight, I survived cancer three times with a 2% survival rate. But what is the cost of surviving? Pain plays a relentless role in our lives -- I have accepted this. My paintings bleed with heartbreak as I use my body and life experiences to illustrate the lasting effects of cancer and life with chronic pain. These pieces take place in a domestic bathroom to stress how I am in a constant state of hiding my trauma and disclosing it to others. Paintings like “Reopen” express how people will never know what we have lived through unless we expose our scars. But even the scars are just on the surface and are undeserving of the destruction that lies within. Maybe people would believe our pain if they could see inside us.