Since I was 6 years old, I would draw cartoon characters and try to sell them at school for 25 cents each. In freshman year of high school, I tried selling my art again. Being an immigrant and an immigrant's daughter I felt the pressure of making sounds and certain choices and as years went by and I got older the idea of making a living out of my art started to feel like a childish fantasy, so I gave it up.

 

I was born in Brazil, moved to the US when I was eight, and moved back when I was eighteen. I studied civil engineering technology — which sounds more impressive than it was — and after graduation realized construction wasn’t for me. I probably should have figured that out sooner.

 

Then trying to figure out my life and what I wanted from it came a series of detours. I went on to work in sales at a jewelry store which I hated. Then I made the obvious choice (sarcasm) to work in cyber security sales. I really liked the job; I liked the challenge, the complexity, the technicality, and surprisingly the creativity that was needed. But then I was faced with burnout and depression.

When my mind and body couldn’t keep up anymore, I turned to God and back to painting — something I had always loved but never had the courage to pursue. We usually associate health with what is tangible and physical, and it never crossed my mind that I would be in this position. Oh, how arrogantly we forget how extremely fragile humans are.

But because of my fragility and vulnerability I was able to find myself. I went back to my origins - the Creator Who has so kindly taken care of me all these years, even though I didn’t deserve it.

Now, I paint what words can’t express: the quiet war between what we show and what we feel. I believe that art connects us through vulnerability. 

My upcoming series, The Pulse Beneath the Skin (2026), explores human rebellion, fragility, vulnerability and repentance. Grey bodies over red grounds, love beneath cold sterile control. Each piece is an act of unmasking — an insistence that beneath the pursuit of perfection, superficiality, detachment and coldness, there is always life if you dare let Light in.