Imagination is one of the most powerful elements of human thought. Like many children, from an early age, I struggled to find interest in things in the classroom and many of the tasks that a child is asked to do. Why do math homework, when I could transport to another land, one filled with mountains whose peaks were enveloped in clouds, a place where I was called to kill the beast that dwelled in the dark forests, or where mushrooms stood like trees and stretched into the sky with forest creatures living in them, the possibilities were endless. Why would I want to do homework? As time went on my imagination and daydreaming only grew stronger, no matter how much monotony or struggle was in my real life, I could always escape to these worlds, and I often did. Illustration has provided a bridge to the imagination, my work focuses on that subject and aims to evoke feelings of nostalgia and childlike wonder by bringing those worlds to life.

Illustration can serve many purposes, it can evoke emotion and convey feeling, communicate a message, and most of all, tell stories. Stories filled with the small moments that often get taken for granted. “Neighborhood Nights” references those moments, and the childhood nights of endless wonder with them. My work is meant to capture this, and take the viewer to another place out of their life for an instant. To be enveloped into a different world, and feel like a kid again. Inevitably through life we are taught to mask wonder and imagination and focus on the real world in front of us, my work aims to let the viewer tap back into that wonder, and stop and appreciate the moment around them.