Romantic Tensions
2024 - 2026
This highly personal, earnest body of work was created in tandem with my current romantic relationship. While dating, I struggled to reconcile disparate feelings, gut reactions, community knowledge and unique experiences. I wanted to resist cynicism while holding onto my highest ideals. I created three archetypes of myself and, like an author listening to their characters, I let them show me different ways of seeking love. These selves embody core tensions in the work: practicality vs desire, prioritizing romantic love vs investing more broadly in life, and giving love every chance to succeed without compromising one’s truest self.
Prologue
Theatre: 24×30” linocut & mixed media, completed in 2026
She Fell First
Print: 10×8” linocut reduction, completed in 2024
Fell where? In or out of love?
I'm playing with the romance trope "she fell first (he fell harder)" with this print about how it feels to be the first person in a relationship to feel uprooted, unsettled, or unhappy. We're often the breakup initiators, maybe because we're paying closer attention.
This artwork is called Prologue because of where it’s placed (first) in the context of my body of work “Romantic Tensions” which follows the plot of a Romance novel or film.
The interactive element of this artwork is a small knob that slides a strip of paper up and down and changes the image from a heart in the body to a heart in the ground.
Branching Out
Theatre: 36×54” linocut & mixed media, completed in 2025
Moving (on) Day
Print: 16×12” linocut reduction, completed in 2024
My favourite story to tell about "Branching Out" isn't even mine. I showed a collector in San Francisco a video of this artwork mocked-up (turn a crank on the front of the art to make the print loop infinitely) and he told me about Buddhist prayer wheels. I love the idea that by turning this artwork, you could, in effect, be saying a prayer, or casting a spell, or setting an intention over and over again, and it could help you in your journey to move on from whatever it is you're moving on from.
Choosing to move on from a breakup is something we all do multiple times in our lives, sometimes multiple times in the fallout of a single relationship. I'm always saying about my works in progress, "it's all coming together," and I think moving on is also like that, a thing you have to choose and choose and choose. By using the imagery of moving house, I'm illustrating that the emotional experience can be like the physical experience: draining, overwhelming, and requiring real effort to pick the unknown over the known.
Spin to Win?
Theatre: 36×36” linocut & mixed media, completed in 2026
Fool me over and over
Print: 12×16” linocut reduction, completed in 2025
This piece speaks to the cyclical nature of "putting yourself out there" in the context of dating. From dreaming of the romance she reads about (the character sitting on the novel), to messaging on apps (the character sitting on the phone), to refocusing on platonic love (the character sitting on the playing card) [and back around], this artist is grounded by a desire to resist cynicism at all costs.
The entire artwork spins, and by choosing a still spot on the wall and waiting for the words that stop beside it, you can read one of my dating experiences that may feel alarmingly relateable.
Sunset House
Theatre: 34×44” linocut & mixed media, completed in 2026
The Bitch Who Broke His Heart
Print: 12×16” linocut reduction, completed in 2024
The lighter of my two breakup artworks, Sunset House is vulnerable, discerning, and permission-giving. It embodies the best friend who listens supportively to your stories in which you’re not sure who the villain is.
There are four doors that are progressively trickier to open as the text behind them becomes more and more private. There are dozens of tiny paper hearts (written by friends, community members, and family) with breakup reasons explained in only a few words. They hide amongst each other: safety in numbers.
“tickling” “fake british accent”
“couldn’t take the mean things anymore”
“too accommodating, I needed more pushback”
What if it Weren’t a Tragedy?
Theatre: 36×59” linocut & mixed media, completed in 2026
Crushing Softly
Print: 12×16” linocut reduction, completed in 2024
When I have a crush I tend to clean my apartment. I feel this motivation to experience the glowiest version of my reality. My friends have observed this, and I journaled about a similar thing as far back as 2016. “A subjective eternity passes in the time between my hitting the send button and the bumble bee in my pocket that signifies that you have replied. I use that eternity to get things done."
I know that others have written about the concept of crushing and put emphasis on “crush” also meaning to squish or break: the painful parts. But I think the more centred and secure I am in myself, the more I get to just enjoy the crushy feelings. I know that if a person starts treating me in a way that doesn’t align with my standards, I will either end it or call them out. I trust myself, and I get to float around tidying up old projects while I wait (not very long) for paramedic-guy to text me back.
“What if it weren’t a Tragedy?” frames “Crushing Softly” between two caryatids with their heads in clouds full of Penrose tile constellations. Below, a tiny bookshelf allows you to rearrange the spines like fridge-magnet poetry.
Third Act Conversation
Theatre: 36×36” lioncut & mixed media, completed in 2026
Heavy Emotions Advancing Relationship Trust
Print: 12×16” linocut reduction, completed in 2025
There is a plot device in Romance stories called the “third act breakup”. The couple meets, enters a relationship, has conflict, breaks up, and gets back together at the end. This is typically meant to prove that their love is more important than their conflict, but I mostly find it annoying and wish they would just talk it out.
The print “H.E.A.R.T.” is surrounded by plexiglass sheilded alcoves. The plexiglass is a painted plate design in dark green with the same colour behind it, and text is revealed when you slide a bright paddle behind it. Each plate asks a “scary” question of a viewer and their hypothetical partner, in a relationship that we don’t yet know the fate of.
Questions include: What will you prioritize over our relationship? And, Have I hurt you in any way I don’t know about?
And if this is a temporary love… still, I have no regrets
Theatre: 72×60” linocut & mixed media, completed in 2026
Happily For Now
Print: 40×29” linocut reduction (in four pieces), completed in 2026
Happily for Now is the lesser known criteria for a novel to be considered a Romance; either this or Happily Ever After is essential to the genre. It also suits the artist and her partner, two romantically pragmatic people who don’t want to lose themselves in their relationship with each other. This artwork evokes the giddiness of the end of movies like Matilda (1996) and Pride and Prejudice (2005). The two protagonists go off to build a life together, and there is real hope that they will be happy.
And if this is a temporary love… still, I have no regrets is a line of poetry I wrote while I was planning the book spines for What if it Weren’t a Tragedy? and it sums up an integral part of making this art and building a relationship at the same time. I want to hold boundaries without witholding any important truth or affection, regardless of the outcome. If we can’t sustain a relationship, I want to know that I gave it every chance to succeed without compromising my truest self. This is one of the core tensions at the root of this body of work.
There is a curatorial, potentially gendered tension between the print and its landscape painting. The print could be considered sentimental in a way that bothers some people. Meanwhile, the painting references sublime landscapes, a more respected category in Western art. The gold frame mimics institutional importance while hiding secret sentimentality. The 62 different plant carved into it are from a list my partner and I wrote of everything we would like to grow in the garden of our future home.
Labelled: Aquarius
Theatre: 14×20” linocut & mixed media, 2025
Labels
Print: 5×8” linocut, completed in 2024
These artworks are a precursor to the format that I leaned into for all of the Romantic Tensions artworks. The print was commissioned for SNAPline, my studio’s publication, and the theatre was a purely fun experiment. Neither of them really belong thematically with the rest, except that they’re identity-based self portraiture.
This theatre resides with the same collector who acquired the third Comfort House Project, which I think is fun.