Women tend to hide their private selves - they “put on a brave face” a lot of the time. These are real women and friends of mine who graciously took selfies for me to paint a moment of vulnerability and truth. These are moments of quiet peace, singing with abandon, laughing at oneself, empathy, and trying to hold back tears.

This is a group of real women who volunteered to be photographed while doing things that are typically an illusion of “proper” behavior. Self-grooming, applying or removing makeup, and drinking alcohol in a very “non-ladylike” fashion. The color choices and make-up stylings were decided by my 4-year old daughter as a commentary on who decides what is beautiful or proper when it comes to women’s identities.

In this evolving style of pop art portraits, I have enjoyed colorizing my favorite icons from the past. They all hold a special place for me and I often repeat the same faces as I imagine their spirit would reflect.

Star Wars, a subject close to my heart, has inspired many pop art style portraits of my favorite characters on canvas and wood blocks.

Historical figures that made a positive impact on the world are a big source of my inspiration. Painting their portraits in some of their most vulnerable or iconic poses was a great honor. I love mixing this graphic, street art style of pop art with the classic faces we know so well.

I took some of my favorite turn of the century artists who made waves in the Modern Art community and put my spin on them. Using cut outs from comic books that reflected the character or the artist, I hoped to create a juxtaposition between old and new.

This art movement has always impressed and amazed me. Taking my pop art spin, I combined different surrealist images into single paintings hoping to create an ironic version of the original subjects.

This grayscale wood collection depicts icons I thought were the epitome of cool and classic.

I should clarify - famous "movie quotes" are not exactly famous quotes in general - but they are famous around my house. These are some of the classics transformed into visual images.

Ancient art is an obsession of mine, and getting to bring some of my favorites to life was not only challenging but inspiring.

Los Angeles architecture and skylines have always been so fun to paint. I love taking the straight edges and throwing them into chaos with color and splatter - almost liquifying them in an alternate reality.

These comic style portraits of my favorite movie characters was a fun experiment in color and shape.