Children appear to be some of your main subject matters; how does your childhood reflect in your work?

My childhood was magical. I grew up with four sisters between our home in Miami and a cabin in the Everglades. We collected all different animals, but the most being turtles, snakes, and other lizard species. We were always barefoot with no tree left unclimbed, and our imaginations were endless. Alongside this magical childhood, I was born two years after my nine-year-old brother's death, which forced me to experience and try to grapple with the idea of grief. Being so young and seeing older adults express such raw emotion left me many times confused. Now that I have matured, I try and depict the dichotomy of freedom and joy from my childhood mixed with raw and extreme emotion. Almost all of the images are of my younger cousins whom I have been lucky enough to watch grow up and be part of their very special childhoods.