I recreate familiarity through pictures that tell a story about family dynamics, identity, vulnerability,  culture, and community, that hold symbolic meanings. My discovery of oil pastels was a new found love. There is a form of intimacy when working with oil pastels through the physicality between my hands pressed against, almost imprinting onto the pastels, and my body drawing closer, looking deeper, applying finer details into each portrait I make. I find similarities when working with the medium and the subjects I draw. Life can be raw, messy, and beautiful all at once. There is a connectivity, a oneness between my body, and the medium that is messy where something beautiful comes out of it. Creating small-scale portraitures allows me to recreate those sensations, that intimacy making the work, looking deeper at the image and finding newness in who I’m capturing each time I revisit. I feel closer to my roots, community, being Boricua, and finding a deep understanding of myself, and my family. Each image that I recreate are sourced through photographic archives found on social media; Facebook, that are physically inaccessible to me. I’m accentually redeveloping digital images through pastel drawings to preserve, connect, and reconnect and have physical images to those memories. My paintings are drawn from my life and the challenges that come with having physical ailments. There is vulnerability in my selected compositions through pictures taken from hard moments in my life. I paint with intension, selection, and looking beyond the image by unveiling and amplifying various shades of values, and temperature to create feeling, understanding, and empathy. The figure in each of my paintings are in the present, looking away from the viewer, allowing the viewer to look through the surrounding boarders acting as a window. Through my process of selecting images, I gravitate towards images surrounding furniture and specific location. I want to  draw the viewers inward capturing the attention, and essence of space surrounding the subject, to create context, and understanding of who these people are and the lives they lived. I want my paintings and drawings to provoke a strong feeling that is liberating and convey a strong sense of vulnerability and relatability.