Inspired by the archeology of Mesoamerican figures and the landscape of Mexico, my work serves as a reflection on my Mexican-American identity. As the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, I grew up with one foot in the U.S. and the other in Mexico. My childhood was spent traveling to Mexico each summer to study painting with my grandfather, a professional portrait painter who painted portraits of the elites of Guadalajara. These trips also included studying with one of my aunts, who is a professional sculptor who recognized and encouraged my artistic inclinations since I was a child. My roots as an artist stem from my Mexican side and I was encouraged at an early age to pursue the family legacy. As my mother was American and both of my parents taught at US universities, I mainly grew up in the United States. Unfortunately, this distance from Mexico has created a barrier to the proximity I felt as a child to Mexico and my family there. I return regularly to experience Mexico as a tourist, however I will always wonder what my life would have been like if I had grown up there. The desire to feel that sense of familial and national belonging has lead me to my current body of work. My paintings reference statuary, botanicals and landscapes I have seen and visited on my travels to Mexico. My paintings are devotional offerings to an invented place of belonging. Out of the ruins of their previous existence, these new creatures inhabit a borderland between Mexico and the US. Their narrative nature references ancient Aztec and Mayan mythology while reflecting back on current and personal events. Dualities define them; they give them shape. Weaving together invented spaces with references to actual places, the paintings take both a familiar tone and a sense of the uncanny. Taken as a whole, my paintings offer a purview into an invented world existing just slightly out of the realm of possibility. By playing with spatial compression and a filtered palette, I invite viewers to consider the realities we create for ourselves and the possibilities that lie ahead.