Spacewalkers | Portrait Series

Inspired by the ‘spacewalkers’ that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope, Spacewalkers is a series that explores figures who exist in liminal spaces, —spaces both human and otherworldly, — spaces of creative possibility and personal peril. These paintings function as portraits of tenacity and resistance, telling a story of women and marginalized people who are too often excluded from participation and representation.

Spacewalkers re-imagines who and what —and who—deserves to be made visible. Busts, historically reserved to honorfor honoring those with wealth and power, haves long served as a tools of glorification and legacy. My pieces rebuke that tradition by turning toward those who have been denied recognition. Thesey are not likenesses meant to flatter or exalt; they are interventions, testaments to the presence and power of those overlooked. Each piece becomes an act of reclamation — one that insists that every person has a right to be seen, remembered, and honored.

Spacewalkers opposes the primary goal of monumental art: the illusion of permanence, invulnerability, and the transcendence of death. While As a trained as a painter, I also work with stencils, a visual language rooted in protest rather than prestige. I personally engage with each of my subjects, photographing them and recording their stories photograph and record the stories from my subjects to create each every piece. , using tTheir narratives serve as both as my inspiration and the foundation of the work. This combination allows me to reframe monumental art not as a homage to power, but as a living practice of visibility, vulnerability, and voice.

These portraits of spacewalkers refuse containment, protest restriction, and defy efforts to subordinate them. My subjects include scientists, poets, artists, new Americans, a fashion designer, a prize fighter, a construction worker, administrators, mothers, students, small business owners, care givers, and the very first American woman female to walk in spacespacewalker, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan.

Artists play a vital role in the process of fighting erasure. We are not only makers of images, but also shapers of collective memory and imagination. Through art, we insist that other stories be told, other faces seen, other futures imagined. Spacewalkers is my contribution to that insistence: a reminder that the role of the artist is not merely to decorate space, but to challenge, provoke, and create space where diverse voices can finally take their rightful place.