"To create “Stargazer” I used a painting that I started in 2017 as the ground to build from. The original painting was a close up of a stargazer fish. I have recently been interested in creating a pictorial space that fluctuates between flatness and illusionary depth, using layered imagery and with varying painting application techniques. What emerges is a space that is fluid and contradictory at the same time. From a distance you can see a figure floating in the water, but up close the representation breaks down into strokes, and fragments of the original underpainting come through. The image I used as reference for the figure is from a Victoria’s Secret swimsuit catalog. These advertisements read as “Birth of Venus” paintings from the past, goddesses emerging from the sea, saturated with desire, and revealing beauty ideals of the time, but in this painting instead of the goddess emerging out of the sea the figure is dissolving back into the waters. She gazes out just like the stargazer, looking beyond as she breaks down into the surface.”