BLUE

Behind the painting

The story of BLUE.

I painted BLUE in 2018 when I was feeling sad and very alone. I had endured abuse that I had not spoken about. There was so much I wanted to say, but I did not know how to say it—or even who I could say it to.

I chose blue because it belonged to that feeling. It held my sadness and the silence around everything I was carrying. The color gave those feelings a place in the painting.

Her original title was Secrets. I knew I was tired of holding on to them. That name belonged to the chapter in which I painted her, when I had so much inside me and no clear way to speak about it.

Around 2025, I reimagined my collection. I began turning it from a collection about pain into pieces of my healing journey. Secrets became BLUE as part of that change.

The story of how she began is still part of her. Now she also has a place within my healing journey, alongside the other paintings whose stories I began to see differently.

I painted her in acrylic on canvas and spent roughly ten to twelve hours on her. She holds the sadness, the loneliness, and the things I wanted to say during that chapter of my life.

Acrylic on canvas · 16 × 20 inches · 2018