Drum Circle
40×30 inches, acrylic on canvas
This drum circle happened right outside my studio in Užupis, Vilnius, during my artist residency. Drawn by the rhythmic pulse, I joined the celebration welcoming spring’s arrival. One of the guys offered me a beer as we stood around the fire.
Bold, raw brushstrokes capture figures emerging from darkness, pulsing with the same energy as their beating drums. Orange and yellow flames dance across faces while bodies sway to the collective heartbeat of percussion. The loose, energetic technique mirrors the raw, elemental nature of this timeless ceremony.
There’s something deeply satisfying about this communion between human spirit and seasonal change—music becoming medicine, community becoming the catalyst for welcoming warmer days. Standing in that circle, beer in hand, I felt the barriers dissolve between observer and participant.out trying, loyal beyond reason, gentle without effort.
Horse & Hound
24×24 inches, acrylic on canvas
This painting celebrates one of the oldest bonds in human experience — two animals whose loyalty, gentleness, and grace have accompanied us across centuries without ever asking for recognition. Here they are given what they have always deserved: halos. Not as religious symbols, but as honest acknowledgment. These are saint-like creatures — not because of anything they have done, but because of everything they simply are. Painted in bold, expressive color against a deep ground, they exist together in quiet dignity, healing without trying, loyal beyond reason, gentle without effort.
Fire & Rain •
40×30 inches, acrylic on canvas
This painting celebrates one of the oldest bonds in human experience — two animals whose loyalty, gentleness, and grace have accompanied us across centuries without ever asking for recognition. Here they are given what they have always deserved: halos. Not as religious symbols, but as honest acknowledgment. These are saint-like creatures — not because of anything they have done, but because of everything they simply are. Painted in bold, expressive color against a deep ground, they exist together in quiet dignity, healing without trying, loyal beyond reason, gentle without effort.
Into The Storm
40×30 inches, acrylic on canvas
This turbulent seascape captures a solitary sailboat battling ferocious waves in a dramatic storm. Fierce, aggressive brushstrokes in deep blues, teals and whites create churning water that threatens to overwhelm the small green vessel. The expressive palette—punctuated by flashes of orange, yellow, and cream—represents the chaotic struggle between human determination and nature’s relentless power. Caught at the point of no return, the boat has no choice but to push forward into the tempest, guided only by a sliver of golden light breaking through the tumultuous sky at the horizon. Each gestural mark heightens the drama, transforming the canvas into a visceral experience of survival, courage, and the unwavering resolve to navigate through darkness toward hope.
Run Free
24×18 inches, acrylic on canvas
My father was a rabbit in the Chinese zodiac. Nine years after losing him, I was pulled to paint this hare — I believe he is running free.
I wanted to keep the form simple, just enough to feel the leap, the stretch, the full commitment of the body in motion. Nothing extra. Detail would only slow him down.
The brushwork is thick and alive, the marks full of exuberance and joy. A golden outline traces the hare like light coming from within, while deep navy sweeps through the edges — not walls, but open air rushing past.
The red-orange field is wide, warm, and limitless. This is not a painting about loss. It is about freedom — and the feeling that somewhere, he is running free.
Twisted Soul
48×48 inches, acrylic on canvas
Two figures merge in an ambiguous embrace, their forms interlocked in what could be love, conflict, or both. The loose, gestural brushstrokes create a sense of movement and emotional intensity, allowing the bodies to flow into one another with organic fluidity.
The restrained palette of cool teals, soft pinks, and deep blacks establishes a yin-yang tension—each figure defined by contrasting hues that simultaneously complement and oppose. This chromatic duality mirrors the ambiguity of their relationship: are they fighting or holding each other? The painting refuses simple answers, instead capturing the complex, often contradictory nature of human connection where intimacy and struggle coexist, boundaries dissolve, and two beings become inseparable in their entanglement.
家 Home
30x36 inches, acrylic on canvas
When my family left China for the United States, I left the only place I had ever truly called home. I was a child then. In the decades since, I have traveled and lived across more than 50 countries — and in all that movement, home never fully arrived again as a physical space. It became something else: an idea, a feeling, a question I kept carrying.
Home is my attempt to paint that question.
The composition is built from a Chinese character for home — taken apart and reassembled into abstract form. It is not meant to be read. It is meant to be felt. The architecture of the shape holds something familiar: a threshold, a shelter, a structure that protects. The yellow corners pulse with warmth at the edges. And the two red dots — one above, one within — mark the only coordinates that matter: where I am, and where my heart remains.
For a first-generation immigrant, home is never simple. It is always somewhere between the place you left and the person you became. This painting lives in that in-between.
Tribulation
22×10 inches, acrylic on canvas
Time and again, especially from women, I heard the same confession: “The sea brought me back to myself.” They would describe that moment of submersion—how the ocean envelops you, how it disconnects you from everything weighing you down above the surface. The chaos. The trauma. The accumulated heaviness of simply being alive. And in that underwater silence, something remarkable happens: you transcend. You return to a version of yourself that existed before the world left its marks on you.
That’s what I’ve carved the two faces, two versions of the same person. On the left, the younger innocent you—untouched, open, whole. On the right, the present you—carrying everything you’ve lived through. And connecting them, flowing between them, is the hair that becomes the sea itself. Those swirling, intricate lines represent the water’s embrace, the currents that carry you backward through time, dissolving the years, the pain, the weight of it all.