This work has given me permission to make art that is steeped in personal narrative. I use my own language and iconography to connect with symbolism that everyone can connect with. Through this process it becomes both a cathartic release, and elevates me to both artist and storyteller. The viewer creates their own relationship with the imagery of my Mother Mary figure birthing a Jesus child while she bruised, beaten, and consuming intravenous drugs. She still looks holy with her beautiful regalia but the blasphemous imagery admonishes the viewer for looking at work that is contradictory to the sacred. She is Mother Mary, but she is also my mother, your mother, the woman who cared and left you. The maternal figure who saw herself as divine, and a mother, and yet could not choose the child she bore. There is a story there that we share, but one we keep to ourselves. Some of the influences to these works are Marlene Dumas and Yayoi Kusama, both highlighting the psychology of the human through different imagery