I paint characters the way advertising posters and animation taught me to: with clarity, color, and a whole world contained inside a single frame. I’m drawn to the authority of a movie poster—the way it can stop you, persuade you, and make a story feel inevitable. And I’m drawn to animation’s gift for giving a simple form a living presence.

But the deeper engine of my work comes from contradiction.

I grew up under dictatorship, in an environment where visibility could be dangerous and blending in could be a kind of protection. I learned early how to keep my feelings and point of view inside, to not call attention, to stay safe, to remain unreadable. I also learned what it feels like to be rejected for being “too smart,” and how quickly intelligence can become something you’re asked to soften, hide, or shrink.

So I built an inner universe.

My paintings bring that universe to the surface, bright, superflat, character-driven images that may look playful at first glance, but are built to hold a more complicated truth: the tension between hiding and being seen, between safety and self-expression, between a private interior life and a public face.

In each piece, color becomes a form of controlled exposure. The characters are not an escape from reality, they are a way of telling it, without losing its tenderness, humor, or edge.

I turned silence into color.