Live Like Mom
Żyj Tak Jak Mama
This paper cut belongs to a forthcoming series remembering how my late mom balanced work and respite as a Polish-American homemaker. In this image, mom boils water for coffee while also boiling vegetables and eggs to prepare a salad for supper. The paper cut style takes inspiration from visual motifs found in traditional Polish Folk Art paper cuts, specifically from the Łowicz region of Poland.
Sunny Paris
Paris en Soleil
This accordion book is a memento of a sunny, Spring trip to Paris. During my first outing to eat a sandwich on a park bench, I warmed up to my surroundings, admiring the crisp shadows of early blooms and ambulatory wood pigeons.
The book can be viewed in both directions, front and back, to reveal silhouettes in full color and the palette paper used to paint them, but the real intention is to unfold and stand the book up to let the sun pass through the cut-out silhouettes.
Mom in the Style of Alex Katz
Whenever I’m out walking and see a middle-aged woman in front of me with short boy-cut hair, for a split second, I imagine my mom’s alive again — especially if they’re wearing cropped pants, a dressy top, and a handbag cinched under the arm. In these moments, it brings me peace to picture Alex Katz’s series Subject to Reversal: portraits of the backs of his sitters’ heads. Quiet. Alone. Spotlit. Eternal. To hold on to that feeling, I painted my own version as an homage to my mom.
Horsing Around: Drawing from Childhood
For my 32nd birthday, I unboxed my childhood toy horses and drawings from grade-school. In the spirit of introducing play back into my art-making, I tested a new set of gauche paints by painting from my childhood drawings and toy horses.
Lost Things
Lost Things is a collaged children’s picture book chronicling the story of my sister’s lost toy fox during our family’s immigration from Poland to New York. In the process of searching, she finds something else.
Living Color
Living Color is a collection of color-inspired paintings of my late mom based on photo albums from my parents’ first years in Queens, New York. Painting her was a way of wrinkling time: spending time together while both in our 30s.
