figures Artwork

February 26, 2025

Based on February 26th, 2020: The snowfall to me is such a funny thing. Its tranquility is something I’ve grown to love. In adolescence, it became my medium for meditation. To escape the busyness of the world with the flutter of falling flakes. Yet, I’ve realized it’s what’s responsible for troubling my heart. I lost the love of my life only due to the icy weather. With the snow, only did that violent cluster of twisted automobile came into existence. Many years later, waiting for snowfall for my last moments became an obsession. I found a place to spectate that last snowfall, where water falls in the forest to carve stone. As I lean against an old maple’s trunk, I lay watching guard of a stone grotto temple at the base of the falling stream. This temple has no worshipers but only prayers from the whistling branches. There is a sacredness I find in this place’s beauty. A sacredness I myself no longer share. The lone guard of this temple has grown old and tired. Complacent with the agonies of life. The frozen flakes drift down to smother most sounds. Blanketing me with its comfort. The wind kisses my neck, running it’s chilling fingers down my spine. My dulled and greyed eyes grow heavy. From the little light left from the winter night sky, glistens the landscape to reveal a faint figure in the dark’s thickness. It’s my love greeting me to a long-awaited reunion. Reaching her hands out for mine, closer and closer as her figure enclosed in on my restful state. Until her spirit wraps around me. Her warm embrace only cools. First my skin, then the fibers of my being. Now finally the cold creeping into my slowing heart.

February 23, 2025

In 2021: For 15 years, I built a career in software engineering. Working my way up the white-collar ladder. At the height of my career, working up to the Director or Executive level. At times, running my own businesses. My same-aged friends coined the nickname “Young Money” for me, which I was never big on being titled. Sooner or later, I believe all of us working in an office setting eventually reflect and ask ourselves, “What am I doing?” Questioning if what we’re doing is even meaningful. Maybe longing for the outdoors and venturing into the rest of the world beyond the concrete highrise walls in that corporate park. This painting is meant to exemplify that moment of reflection.

February 2, 2025

Based on October 7th, 2022: A few years ago I had accomplished a dream of mine and won my way with my beloved team to the United States Tennis Association National Championships. I had spent many years prior, captaining and building teams just to fall short of winning districts each year. Finally winning our season, sectionals, districts, state, and then winning the Midwest championship; we finally did it. This painting isn’t about the feeling of defeat on the court, as that’s always a chance to improve and grow. I didn’t lose in that aspect, because I was nearly undefeated that year and was almost a guaranteed win on doubles. This painting represents the agony, disappointment, disgust, and deceit, I felt when I learned I could not go to play alongside my friends in the championship in Scottsdale Arizona. I had let my team down and missed out on a once in a lifetime accomplishment.

December 20, 2024

Based on February 26th, 2020: “You’ve grown tired, have’t you dear?”, she reassured. “It was too difficult. I’m so sorry. I failed you”, was my excuse. My stature felt different, like the weighing years had melted off and I was almost floating. She snuck in closer and whispered in my ear with her arms wrapped around me, “I understand. It’s alright now. It’s time to rest.” “Just five more minutes? You know how much I missed this”, I pleaded like an innocent child. “I suppose. Maybe you’ll see me when you awake, but it’s a surprise”, as she somehow wrapped herself around me even more. It was just like her to say something alluring like that. A cold winter wind blew against my neck and creeped throughout the rest of my body, but it felt as though a warmth was melting me asleep. My eyes grew heavy as my head dropped on to her soft shoulder. It was becoming too difficult to fight to stay awake, but I was already asleep. I expelled my last bit of energy to muster up one last, “I really missed you.” Finally closing my eyelids and letting go, drifting off. Was this really her loving hug again, after all these years? Or was this just me, making the rounds in my head, to embrace death?

October 12, 2024

Standoff portrays a poignant scene of two dark, silhouetted figures standing at a distance from each other in a sprawling, golden field of tall grass. The figure on the left is a woman, her form graceful but motionless, while the man on the right stands rigidly, facing away. The muted, overcast sky adds a somber tone to the setting, as the distant hills fade into the horizon. The vastness of the landscape, combined with the physical separation between the figures, evokes a powerful sense of emotional distance and quiet tension, as if they are connected yet worlds apart. The earthy colors and subtle textures enhance the painting’s contemplative, melancholic atmosphere.

August 29, 2024

Hallelujah captures a profound and intimate moment between two figures, a woman and a man, bathed in muted, melancholic tones. The woman, with a look of quiet concentration, gently holds the man’s head as she carefully cuts his hair. The tenderness in her touch contrasts with the rough, darkened surroundings, suggesting a setting filled with history and emotional weight. The man, seated with his back to the viewer, seems resigned, his body language conveying a sense of vulnerability and brokenness. Likely his stone pose shows signs of trauma. His unruly hair and the scattered clippings on his shoulders evoke a passage of time and perhaps a long period of neglect and hardship. Will she cut the ropes that bound him to the chair, allowing to break free, or will she tenderly care for him and ease his woes? Guaranteeing to be a pivotal and defining moment for this pair.