BH Studio

Borrowed Languages: GOYA

WHY GOYA INSPIRES ME: What fascinates me about Francisco Goya is his willingness to paint the parts of being human that we would rather not look at. His later work especially feels almost like someone opened a door into the darkest corners of the mind: violence, madness, isolation, anxiety, fear. I also love that Goya was willing to go dark. At a time when so much art celebrated beauty, grandeur and heroic subjects, he was painting fear, violence, madness and the uglier corners of being human.

His paintings aren't always beautiful. Sometimes they're deeply uncomfortable. And that's exactly what makes them powerful. Goya understood that art doesn't have to make us feel good to tell us something true.

FEAR: Inspired by Goya

For this piece, I wanted fear to feel contemporary. The figure is distorted, frantic and almost consumed by the darkness around him. His eyes are huge. His body is tense. His mouth is open in panic.

And in his hands is a phone.

Because so much of what frightens us now arrives through a screen. We scroll through war, politics, tragedy, comparison, outrage, violence and uncertainty. We watch other people's lives and wonder if ours measure up. We consume more information in an hour than humans were ever meant to carry and then somehow wonder why we feel overwhelmed.

The phone isn't simply something he's holding. It feels like it's consuming him too.

I kept the palette nearly stripped of color because I wanted the piece to feel claustrophobic. There is nowhere for the eye or the figure to escape. Just flesh, darkness and the small glowing object demanding his attention.

Goya painted monsters that came from the fears of his time.

Ours just happen to fit in our hands.

FEAR
Inspired by Francisco Goya
Borrowed Languages

Borrowed Languages: MUCHA

WHY MUCHA INSPIRES ME: What I love about Alphonse Mucha is how completely he rejected the idea that beauty had to be separate from everyday life. His women weren’t simply portraits. They became part of these elaborate worlds of flowers, curves, pattern, nature and symbolism.

There is something almost sacred about the way he framed women. They are soft without feeling fragile. Ornamental without disappearing into the decoration around them. His work reminds us that femininity, nature and beauty can carry enormous power.

GROWTH: Inspired by Mucha

For this piece, I wanted to borrow Mucha’s visual language but replace his beautiful flowers with something a little stranger.

Frogs.

Because growth isn’t always beautiful while it’s happening.

A frog spends its life becoming…egg to tadpole, water to land, one body transforming into another. It felt like the perfect symbol for the kind of growth I’m interested in: the kind that requires you to become someone you haven’t been before. Upgraded.

The frogs aren’t something she is trying to escape. They’re part of her.

And maybe there’s something symbolic in the fact that when Spencer proposed to me, I was wearing frog pajamas. Looking back, it feels like a strange little moment…especially now, in the middle of my single life. The frogs have followed me from one version of myself into another, reminding me that transformation rarely arrives looking polished or predictable.

Because maybe we spend too much time celebrating the butterfly and not enough time honoring the tadpole.

Growth can be awkward. Uncomfortable. Weird. Sometimes completely unrecognizable.

But becoming is beautiful too.

GROWTH
Inspired by Alphonse Mucha
Borrowed Languages

Borrowed Languages: LICHTENSTEIN

WHY LICHTENSTEIN INSPIRES ME: What I love about Roy Lichtenstein is the contradiction in his work. He took imagery that was considered “cheap, commercial, even disposable” (comic books and advertisements) and put it on museum walls.

But underneath those bright colors, perfect faces, and Ben-Day dots, there was often something much more complicated happening. Love. Longing. Rejection. Drama. Women crying over men who probably did not deserve that much emotional energy. 😏

His work feels loud while the emotions inside it can be incredibly lonely.

DATING: Inspired by Lichtenstein

This piece is about the weird emotional theater of modern dating.

She looks like the perfect comic-book heroine: blonde hair, red lips, dramatic tears. Everything is bold, polished and exaggerated. But there is no speech bubble telling us what happened. No partner in the other panel. No explanation.

Just her.

I wanted the tears to feel almost absurdly beautiful…because sometimes heartbreak is like that. We can turn rejection, longing and disappointment into entire stories in our heads. We analyze texts. Replay conversations. Wonder what something meant. Imagine what could have been.

Lichtenstein borrowed the visual language of romance comics to turn private emotion into pop culture. I borrowed his language to look at dating now: still dramatic, still confusing, still full of longing…just with significantly more texting.

Borrowed Languages: MAGRITTE

WHY MAGRITTE INSPIRES ME: René Magritte had a remarkable way of making ordinary objects feel unfamiliar. He understood that images and words don't always tell the same story, and that sometimes the space between them is where the truth lives. In The Treachery of Images, he painted a pipe and wrote, "This is not a pipe." Of course it looked like a pipe...but it wasn't one. It was only a painting of a pipe. That simple contradiction has challenged the way people think for nearly a CENTURY! (reference in comments)

Magritte reminds me that art doesn't always need to provide answers. Sometimes its greatest purpose is to make us see something we've stopped noticing.

PERCEPTION: Inspired by Magritte

This is not a drill.

For generations, those words meant practice. A precaution. Something temporary. Today, they carry a different weight.

I painted a r***e assembled entirely from the objects that belong in a classroom: a backpack, a ruler, a pencil, composition notebooks, crayons. Individually, they represent curiosity, creativity, and possibility. Together, they become something else.

The sentence beneath the painting borrows Magritte's language, but its meaning has changed. This isn't a play on words.

It's a reality too many students, teachers, and families now understand.

I don't know the solution.

I don't know how we stop the headlines or end the fear that follows children into places meant for learning.

I only know that classrooms should never have to rehearse for tragedy, and children should never have to wonder if a drill is real.

We cannot keep accepting the loss of childhood as something normal. I hope this piece speaks to you and thank you for helping inspire me.

Borrowed Languages: KAHLO

WHY KAHLO INSPIRES ME: What I admire most about Frida Kahlo is her courage to make herself the subject…not because she believed she was the most important person in the room, but because she understood that telling the truth about one life could reveal something universal about us all. Her paintings transformed pain into symbolism, identity into landscape, and resilience into beauty. She painted what it felt like to live.

Kahlo understood that symbolism could speak where words failed. Every flower, animal, garment, heart, and tear carried meaning. Her work reminds me that vulnerability isn’t weakness. it is one of the most honest forms of strength.

RESILIENCE: Inspired by Kahlo

This piece explores resilience through contemporary symbols of identity, migration, hope, and survival. Rather than recreating one of Kahlo’s self-portraits, I wanted to borrow her language of symbolism to tell a story rooted in today’s world.

A border wall divides the composition, while silhouettes of a family crossing water speak to displacement and uncertainty. A monarch butterfly represents migration and transformation. The prickly pear cactus symbolizes endurance…life flourishing in difficult conditions. A bleeding heart reminds us that compassion always comes at a cost. Above it all, Kahlo’s words become a declaration rather than a comfort:

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”

The second is a piece to honor her. I couldn’t get that look out of my head!

Borrowed Languages: VAN GOGH

WHY VAN GOGH INSPIRES ME: What I admire most about Vincent van Gogh is that he didn’t just paint what he saw…he painted what he felt. Every brushstroke seems alive, carrying emotion across the canvas. His skies swirl with longing, his fields pulse with hope, and even ordinary portraits feel as though they are breathing. Van Gogh reminds me that wonder isn’t found in perfect moments. It’s found in choosing to keep looking closely at the world, even when life feels heavy. HHis work teaches me that emotion can become beauty when we’re brave enough to share it.

WONDER: Inspired by Van Gogh

Wonder begins with a question. The woman in this portrait isn’t looking at anything in particular. She’s looking through her thoughts, suspended somewhere between curiosity and contemplation. Around her, the world refuses to sit still. The sky twists into impossible currents, her coat dissolves into waves of movement, and the boundaries between the person and the landscape begin to disappear.

I wanted the brushstrokes to feel restless…as if the world itself is alive with possibility. The blues carry both peace and uncertainty, while the warm yellows remind us that light always finds a way into even the darkest skies.

Unlike awe, which arrives all at once, wonder asks us to linger. To sit with questions we cannot answer. To remain open when certainty would be easier.

Because wonder isn’t about finding every answer. It’s about never losing the desire to keep looking.

I hope you love her 🩵

Borrowed Languages: MATISSE

WHY MATISSE INSPIRES ME: What I admire most about Henri Matisse is his belief that art could be joyful. At a time when many artists focused on realism, Matisse chose emotion. He simplified forms, flattened space, and used bold color not to replicate the world, but to express how it felt. His work reminds me that beauty does not have to be complicated to be powerful. There is a generosity in Matisse's paintings. They invite us to slow down, breathe, and experience pleasure without apology.

JOY: Inspired by Matisse
For this piece, I wanted to capture the feeling of contentment. The woman sits comfortably within a world of color, pattern, and growth. She is not rushing. She is not performing. She is simply present. The oversized botanical shapes reference Matisse's iconic cutouts, while the vibrant palette transforms the portrait into a celebration of abundance. The plants stretch toward the edges of the canvas, creating a sense that life continues beyond what we can see. Unlike many of the pieces in this collection, Joy is not about struggle, identity, or becoming. It is about arrival. About those rare moments when we stop chasing what is next long enough to appreciate what already is. The woman doesn't seek joy. She rests inside it.

Borrowed Languages: HARING

WHY HARING INSPIRES ME: What I admire most about Keith Haring is that he believed art belonged to everyone. He painted on subway stations, sidewalks, walls, and public spaces because he wanted art to be accessible, joyful, and impossible to ignore. His work is playful on the surface, but underneath the bright colors and dancing figures are themes of connection, activism, community, and humanity. Haring understood that people are not meant to exist alone. His figures are constantly touching, moving, communicating, and creating energy together. That idea feels just as important today as it did when he first put marker to subway walls.

CONNECTION: Inspired by Haring
For this piece, I wanted to explore the idea that none of us become ourselves alone. The woman at the center appears singular, but she is surrounded by dozens of figures that form her hair, her energy, and her presence. Each shape represents a relationship, a conversation, a lesson, a community, or a moment that helped shape who she became. The portrait asks us to reconsider the myth of individual success. We often tell stories as though people achieve things on their own, but every life is built from countless connections. The figures dance, collide, and move together because growth rarely happens in isolation. We are influenced by the people who love us, challenge us, teach us, support us, and sometimes even disappoint us. The woman remains grounded and steady, while the world around her pulses with movement. Because identity is not something we create by ourselves. It is something we create together.

I cannot wait to see the Keith Haring exhibit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art soon!