The Light Within

The Light Within is a series of small portraits of women, each paired with a poem. It is a reminder, to myself and to any woman who has played so many roles and gone through the ups and downs: you have light within. Along the way, your surroundings may make you forget what you have in you, or who you are. But you always carry the light within you, no matter if it's a good state or a bad state.

Working on this series felt like re-entering the dark, dark woods. The poems came from scribble notes, personal journals, songs, and stories of humans that touched my heart in moments of life. The background colors were chosen intentionally. They move from black, through murky purple and green, toward white: the journey from darkness, walking toward the light. But I painted them in groups, in no particular order. Even though time was linear, the emotions were not. Healing is a wiggly, meandering path: three steps forward, one step back.

The faces look stoic. The poems are the under-rolling current you may not see so clearly. Under the black light, the same fluorescent paint glows just as bright on the darkest canvas as on the lightest.

This is about soft resilience — not the loudest or the brightest strength, but the quiet kind that keeps you from giving up. It is the journey of rediscovering yourself, and your ability to recover, restore, reborn.

You got this. The worst is over.