When I was 22, I left my country and moved to a tiny village in Niigata, Japan in search of something specific. Though I moved to a place where the crowning town achievement was the quality of rice grown, I found what I had been looking for — a sense of community and life. This move was influenced by an unexpected experience I had while studying abroad in Spain during the “Fiesta en la Semana Grande” in Santander. There I felt an overwhelming energy and joy in the way festivals brought strangers together in celebration. Though Japan and Spain could not be more different, I had known Japan had a rich history of festivals and knew it had to be my next move.

My desire to search for these experiences also stems from my upbringing in West Virginia, which always felt isolating, even though my hometown was double the population of the town I moved to in Japan. Yet, I craved the energy I found at festivals, so I packed up my life and moved to Japan. Every moment I got I traveled to every festival I could, even participating in one myself, documenting and taking videos of everything I experienced. Though I was only in Japan for a year, I came back with an arsenal of reference imagery to create my work.

I chose oil painting as the medium to express these moments as I feel it is the best way to express my memories of the people and events I have seen. I have always felt oil paintings were able to grip my attention in a unique way, as the brush strokes and layered colors seem to unlock something in the imagery. I use photography and video in my initial documentation of these festivals, but the images always feel a bit lifeless and clinical until I translate them onto a canvas. 

“Matsuri 1” is the first in a series of oil paintings exploring the vibrant, fleeting moments of Japan’s festivals. These works capture the shared energy and joy of human connection—something that feels increasingly rare in the age of social media and phone addiction. Moving forward, I want to continue traveling, documenting festivals, and celebrating these moments where people come together, breathe life into each other, and rediscover connection.