I’ve always felt naturally drawn to painting human figures that are dissolving into their parts - because that’s the best way I can express how I feel. I used to experience myself as very solid and material, and for a long time, nothing in the world really held my interest. But when I was 17, I went through a massive, sudden shift - over just two or three weeks. Everything that once felt solid suddenly didn’t. My body… the world around me… it all seemed like it had lost its fixedness.

Sometimes now, I can feel the space between the atoms that make up solid matter. It’s like everything melts into this one big connected soup of energy. And honestly, that feeling has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It changed how I live - helped me feel more love, more presence. I just feel deeply connected to everyone and everything. It all feels so magical now.

That’s something I try to share through art. It’s one of the most beautiful feelings I’ve ever had, and painting it is a way to bring that experience into the world - for people who’ve felt it before, and for those who might just be on the edge of discovering it.

It was incredible. That entire moment - coming to Denver, being in the gallery, meeting Alex and Allyson Grey - I had actually imagined it every single day, twice a day, for the last five years. I know manifestation is a big topic these days, but for me, it was always about combining imagination with intention. I would picture it vividly: exhibiting my art, meeting the artists I’ve looked up to, being in that exact kind of space. I’d visualize the feeling of it, not just the outcome.

So for that to actually happen - after all those years of imagining it - was surreal and powerful. But even beyond the manifestation aspect, being surrounded by people who truly understand where you’re coming from… that was something I’d never experienced before. I was 24, and up until then, I’d never really been in a space where I felt so seen.

Back home, trying to explain my art or what I was exploring would sometimes confuse people. But at Threyda, I was around people who didn’t just understand - they felt it. That was massive for my mental state. It made me feel like I had found my place.

Yes — I think about those ideas constantly. The merging of spiritual thought and scientific understanding has always been one of my biggest inspirations. The concept that everything is one interconnected whole, broken down fractally into smaller and smaller parts until it’s all just energy — that’s exactly what I was contemplating when the visual for Field of Awareness came to me.

At the time, I was studying biology in college, probably doing a bit too many psychedelics, meditating a lot, and reading everything I could about consciousness and the nature of reality. That mix of influences hit me all at once, and it gave me a perspective that completely changed my life. Some of the experiences I had — both sober and psychedelic — were so profound that I felt it became a kind of responsibility to express them.

Painting became a way for me to bring something non-physical and nearly indescribable into the physical world. Through art, I could translate what I’d felt — and hopefully let others feel a bit of it too.