Update... finally!

The last few months have flown by very quickly in a flurry of activity. I decided to go back to school and study counselling, which has proven to be very rewarding. I am feeling closer to my goal of entering the helping profession. It will be wonderful for me, a former street kid, to be able to work to help marginalized people. Also, I have secured exhibit space at East Side Pride festival this summer. So I have been painting madly to prepare for this event at the end of June. I am exploring two major themes in my art. One is the feminine divine and eroticism. These paintings are a celebration, filled with bright colours and symbols of life and beauty. I enjoy these paintings. The other theme is homelessness, oppression, social inequality and violence. As an activist and an artist, I feel compelled to create these pieces. They are not pretty, feel-good paintings, but rather ones that (I hope) will rip into your guts and make you think. It's Eros and Thanatos on canvas. Perhaps the upcoming booth at East Side Pride isn't the prime space to display such raw, often brutal images. I am shopping around for other venues where I can display these pieces. In the meantime, I do not create art because it is practical. I create art because I must, because it claws its way out of me and demands to exist.