36 × 36 inches
Mixed-media painting on canvas
Material: paper, personal ephemera, pattern paper, tissue, adhesive, acrylic and oil paint on canvas.
Artist Notes:
This painting continues my exploration of the buffalo as a marker of place and belonging. After visiting the Tallgrass Prairie, I became deeply aware of the animal’s presence in the regional landscape—not just as a historic symbol, but as a living embodiment of endurance and continuity. The buffalo’s grounded strength felt inseparable from the land itself.
As someone who did not grow up in Kansas City, I approach this imagery as both an observer and a participant. I was raised in Wisconsin and spent nearly fifteen years in New York City, environments that shaped my identity in very different ways. Returning to Midwestern landscapes and Western iconography has become a way of reconciling those past lives with the one I am building here—an effort to root myself more fully in this place.
The surface of the painting reflects that process of settling and layering. Through the use of reclaimed imagery, personal ephemera, and repeated cycles of painting and sanding, the image develops gradually, bearing traces of what came before. In this way, the buffalo becomes not only a regional symbol, but a stand-in for the slow work of making a home—carrying history forward while allowing space for change.
36 × 36 inches
Mixed-media painting on canvas
Material: paper, personal ephemera, pattern paper, tissue, adhesive, acrylic and oil paint on canvas.
Artist Notes:
This painting continues my exploration of the buffalo as a marker of place and belonging. After visiting the Tallgrass Prairie, I became deeply aware of the animal’s presence in the regional landscape—not just as a historic symbol, but as a living embodiment of endurance and continuity. The buffalo’s grounded strength felt inseparable from the land itself.
As someone who did not grow up in Kansas City, I approach this imagery as both an observer and a participant. I was raised in Wisconsin and spent nearly fifteen years in New York City, environments that shaped my identity in very different ways. Returning to Midwestern landscapes and Western iconography has become a way of reconciling those past lives with the one I am building here—an effort to root myself more fully in this place.
The surface of the painting reflects that process of settling and layering. Through the use of reclaimed imagery, personal ephemera, and repeated cycles of painting and sanding, the image develops gradually, bearing traces of what came before. In this way, the buffalo becomes not only a regional symbol, but a stand-in for the slow work of making a home—carrying history forward while allowing space for change.
