Artist Statement

In Forced Relationship, I took on portraiture in the most intimate way possible– through a self-portrait. My personal exploration of color and composition are intuitive, and I have found advantages of working from an empty mind- to give solace to any narrative without technical restriction. In this piece, I explore the intimacies of my relationship with my body and queerness. I evoke the feeling of unfamiliarity with my body through aesthetic distortion and abstraction. I worked on the piece around February of 2021 – a time where I became most unfamiliar with my body, my relationship to my Mexican identity, and my own art practice. This painting is a manifestation of the experience of being in forced isolation, a place where most conversation is held through the body. It was a time where I felt most accepting of change all around me, and just like in my art practice, my body felt an intuitive change that was reflected in this painting. Forced Relationship is my healing process. Ashe.