I think of rituals as marks carved into a tree, recording moments in time and place. We repeat the same actions over and over again, but each repetition carries different emotions until the ritual becomes unrecognizable —and so do we.

The works I am presenting explore this idea through different forms of belonging. "Mom" reflects on childhood rituals that become the foundation of identity through repetition. "The Bathers" and "The Lifters" look at collective rituals, asking how shared routines—whether in a public bathhouse or a gym—gradually create trust and transform a group of strangers into a community.

Writing is an important part of the work. Before making an image, I write from memory, collecting ordinary details that might otherwise disappear—a familiar smell, a repeated gesture, a fragment of conversation, a household object. The texts and the images hold different kinds of memory; neither can fully replace the other. The paintings and the texts exist as parallel ways of remembering the same ritual.