“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
— Oscar Wilde
Conversations with My Other Self, Los Gatos, CA, 2019
I’ve long suspected that I am not alone in my own mind. There’s another version of me, slightly more mischievous, possibly wiser, certainly more daring, who keeps whispering from the shadows of my imagination. We share the same roots but reach for different skies. This diptych, “Conversations with My Other Self,” was born from that internal quarrel, or perhaps, duet.
On the left, the pale, spectral branches emerge like an X-ray of thought, fragile, transparent, exposed. It’s the self that rationalizes, that seeks light through logic. Every branch is a synapse firing into emptiness, craving connection. On the right, its twin lives in shadow, tangled, defiant, and alive with quiet sparks. This is the dreamer, the one who dances in moonlight and doesn’t apologize for it. Together, they form a visual argument that never ends: one reaching up to understand, the other curling inward to feel.
I often think of my art as a kind of therapy conducted in whispers. The trees are stand-ins for selves I cannot name, roots and branches performing the dialogue my words cannot sustain. I give them form, contrast, and a touch of mystery, and in return, they give me peace, or at least, the illusion of it.
There’s humor, too, in realizing how earnestly these trees argue on my behalf. The one on the left seems to lecture with academic precision, while the one on the right has already left the classroom to go chase starlight. In their disagreement, I find balance.
Maybe that’s the real trick of living. To make peace with the chorus of versions we carry inside. To photograph them is to say, “I see you. You’re both real. Now, behave.”
Artist Statement
In this diptych, I use trees as metaphors for the dialogue between my rational and emotional selves. One tree exists in light, skeletal and deliberate; the other in shadow, expressive and chaotic. The juxtaposition captures the inner conflict that fuels creativity, a kind of aesthetic schizophrenia I’ve learned to embrace. My art is not about resolution but about coexistence: two selves intertwined, both necessary, both beautiful in their dissonance.