The year I turned 30, I did some reflecting on my 20s. I thought back to my first years of college, the moves I made to Nicaragua and Spain, the jobs I held upon graduation. Through the twists of the last decade the word that defined my 20s was “Friendship”.

When I think back to a memory that feels so quintessentially 20s, I think of my two best friends and me sitting on a stained red couch, singing songs in sweatpants. I think of how I watched my friends transform before my eyes into confident, independent, fiercely creative and kind women. I reminisce on vulnerable truths shared, hard conversations that brought us closer, and the spaces that have grown around us as we grow older.

But how sweet is it to pick up the telephone and hear a voice that floods your senses with love and comfort.

In The Friendship Decade I & II, created just before my 30th birthday, you’ll see a shape and its negative. It’s as if the mass has left its comfortable home and stepped out into the world, contrasting deeply with its surroundings but full of saturated confidence.

The Friendship Decade I & II, 2023

Acrylic, spray paint, oil pastel on canvas

24 x 30 in