Earlier Work (‘09 - ‘13)

This body of work captures the foundational years of my collage and mixed media practice. Created between 2009 and 2013, these pieces mark a period of exploration defined by instinct, improvisation, and material play. I worked with whatever was at hand — torn paper from my own paintings and drawings, found images, fabric, thread, and newspaper clippings — creating textured, layered compositions that tested the boundaries between figuration and abstraction.

These early collages reveal a restlessness that continues to shape my practice today. Fragmentation, repetition, and gesture became ways to approach the body, identity, and presence without relying on realism. Many works feature partial figures, cut forms, and raw edges, pointing toward the more intuitive portraiture and compositional abstraction that anchor my current work.

The material decisions made here — to tear, to stitch, to reassemble — were not just aesthetic but formative. They laid the groundwork for a visual language rooted in process, where emotional tone and formal tension guide the image. While the palette and structure have evolved in later series like Moonlight Blues, the seeds of that evolution are fully visible here: in the layering, the mark-making, and the persistent drive to make meaning from disparate materials.