Glass Half Full, Acrylic and Gesso on Paper, 2026

76 x 57cm

The Spirit of Surrealism in a Glass

I am the prostitute at the bar with her glass half full, being looked at by an audience of men.

In my work, I explore archetypes and examine how theatre relates to painting. I paint in the spirit of surrealism, exploring the theatre of the unconscious. My curiosity about archetypes was first sparked in college when I encountered the great Spanish artist Goya; struck by his ability to communicate human emotions such as love and grief with simple gestures, I studied him endlessly and made hundreds of drawings from his oeuvre. Later, I collaborated with a theatrical performance group in NY for 10 years, making paintings and drawings while the group performed improvised music. Through this process, I developed my own artistic vocabulary. My work reimagines art history using my body as a nexus, inviting the viewer to participate in the crossroads between performance art and picture-making.

"Mind and body are not two separate things; they are one and the same life" Carl Jung, in Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practice (1935)

When Jung guided patients, they were instructed to pay attention to their physical frame — to let the body move, paint, dance, or give vocal resonance to the unconscious drive; a process he called ‘Active Imagination’.

In this painting, Glass Half Full, I examine the masterpiece Zoku ni iu bakuren by the ukiyo-e master Kitagawa Utamaro (a copy of which is held in the British Museum).  The title translates as "What people colloquially call a cunning/shameless woman." 

Allowing myself to enter a half-dream state, through performance I actively reimagine this character.  Using my body as a compass, I breathe life into her and endow her with a 21st-century psyche, a woman with her own agency.  My colours are pared down, and primal lines convey only the absolute basics: an action, a moment in time, a feeling, a song.