The subject of the photograph is living through an incredibly difficult period of history. It makes one think how often she was told to cheer up or put on a facade of happiness.

The original piece is accompanied by a written story of an optimistic young black girl talking about a brighter future for herself. As we grow up it’s easy to lose optimism, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try; after all we never know who we might inspire and empower in our wake.

Funny enough, the first thing that came to mind for me regarding the Mona Lisa is how over time, her eyebrows have faded to now no longer appear at all. Somehow this led me to thinking about my first dog, Tucker, and how over the past 11 years his mask and eyebrows have also slowly faded, something bittersweet but also so beautiful. Anyone who has owned an aging dog understands how precious they are, just as this painting has grown over time to become the most famous painting in the world. I used portrait style clips, framed like the Mona Lisa, to share moments from Tucker's last 11 years of life.

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The painting and the artist themself inspired me to read quotes by Native American activist Leonard Peltier. What I read was words of peace, hope, and brutal honesty. Words that still ring true today and are needed more than ever. I knew my friend George Alvarez would connect with this quote on a spiritual level, not only as a wise and peaceful human, but also as someone who’s community is being displaced.

The painting immediately said sun rise over an ocean or a flat vista. As a person who loves to chase a sunset it occurred to me that there may be people in the world who chase a beautiful sunrise. What if a memory was in a sunrise and recreating it with someone you love meant defying your basic body clock? Would you chase it or settle for something more interesting. And that, is where my head went.

This is my daily routine. Exploring my exit strategies but failing to act. Nervous that my own procrastination will be my demise.

I liked learning about the Rococo movement and its emphasis on frivolity and playfulness, depicting scenes of courtship instead of overtly religious or political subjects. The painting's backstory inspired me as well, learning how other painters turned down the client's commission until Fragonard finally said yes: swapping the requested bishop pushing the client's mistress on the swing while the client points and watches (scandalous!) for an everyday husband pushing the client's mistress (not as scandalous?). Since TV ads are kind of our own frivolous throwaways, I wanted to contrast a silly 1990s vibe with the intimacy of trysts.

This painting was given as a gift from the artist to her husband and translates to “man that eats people.” I was inspired by the surreal, distorted figure and drawn to the idea of an endless cycle of self-consumption.

My painting was a parody of a contemporary outdoor landscape painting titled, "Night Rain" as it asks, what is going on inside the buildings in that painting? In it, we see a boy inside a brothel with only women and I wondered, are the only male influences he has are the men that walk inside? In this film I ask the same questions in a different, modern setting.

I took inspiration from Pissarro's choice of location and his approach in creating the painting. Like an impressionist I choose a location and time of day to show a highly specific moment that will never happen exactly like that again. A bridge is a literal and metaphorical way to pass from one place to another, so whether mundane or magical there's a journey in motion.

Picasso’s “Girl Before a Mirror” shows a woman facing two sides of herself - the one she shows the world,
and the one underneath. I wanted to translate that same duality, but more subtly, through overlapping
stop motion frames: two exposures of the same face that never quite resolve into one. Like Picasso’s
painting, neither side is more “real” than the other but, instead, just different truths that can exist in the
same person.

In Gothic Literature, it is often a house, dwelling (or the ruins thereof) that inspire fear and foreboding. It was the house that inspired Wood's painting. Looking to tell a Gothic American story, the housing market and the specter of the climate crisis felt like an appropriately haunting place to start...

When I first did research on Ad Parnassum I learned that at the time of creating it, Paul Klee was teaching at the time, as well as that the painting supposedly depicted pyramids. I also learned that the triangles on the painting could refer to crescendo and decrescendo marks. I thought about how in school my teachers were often trying to get us to focus on important things in class, and I often found myself wondering why I even had to learn any of it in the first place. And so “What’s the Point” came to be.