2023

Full of deepest blue hues and dark glimmers of light, this work descends into the liminal space of unbecoming and the practice of re-centering. This current work is aesthetically based on diving in subterranean cenote caverns near my home. They are filled with cold fresh water and rocky depths, where some of the deepest tunnels are said to lead out to the sea.

This body of work is a visual allegory of my experience of postpartum and the shifting identity of becoming and being a mother. For me birth was followed by an awareness that a powerful tectonic shift had occurred, and I later discovered that one’s brain changes more dramatically during birth than even adolescence. I’ve experienced this period of my life as strange, mystical, and also profoundly disorienting. I felt and still feel a mystery to myself.

This work plays with the juxtaposition of this invitation to descend into the unknown, while limited by my breath and life force. Even so, I can train and build my capacity to explore these shadowy depths. Diving, for me, is an embodied practice of meditation and self-discovery. A completely immersive experience, each dive plunges me into a kind of underworld. Time stretches and seconds feel infinite. But if I learn to self-regulate, I can teach myself to hold space and adjust my eyes to the luminous depths. Trusting that through this maze of subterranean tunnels, I just might emerge into the dazzling light.