My oil paintings use the ephemeral qualities of memories and dreams to depict life in Brooklyn and the Caribbean. My work takes scenes from the borough, the islands, and my childhood, and tempers them with abstract and magical elements. Watching the finale of my grandfather’s life led me to dig up moments from the beginning of mine. In depicting these moments I employ fracture, letting scenes shift between moments and ideas, to conjure the blurring effects of memory. This retrospective journey has led me to explore the history of my grandfather’s Caribbean origins. Delving into the region’s indigenous, colonial, and independent eras, I have gathered symbols and histories that imbue my work with a greater cultural weight. My painting technique consists of paint pours that evoke the aquatic environment of the West Indies. These pours are often divided by a horizontal edge which references my childhood fascination with the horizon at sea: A line that conjures thoughts of the infinite, biological origins, and the Antillean islands. My practice has always investigated the psychological and historical layers behind experience. Philosophies and spiritual practices from around the world have given me frameworks to understand these layers. I have channeled these philosophies’ focus on spaciousness into my abstract and figurative imagery. Moving forward, I plan to celebrate the various people groups that formed the Caribbean’s chromatic culture through history paintings permeated by symbolism and abstraction.