Neighbors

Every time our neighbor’s avocado tree gave fruits, he’d show up at the door with some for us.

I don’t think I fully understand how privileged we are in front of that kind of generosity. A tree that gives, and a person who remembers to share what it gives. Also the thing is these were the best Avocados I ever tasted, and now I cannot like any others elsewhere.

Making this painting was a bit of a struggle, it had a long ugly phase. For a while it just wasn’t working, and I didn’t know if it ever would. Then somehow it came together, and I loved it!

I called this series Mediterranean for a long time before I understood why.

It’s not about a coastline. It’s about the things that grow here, the things we share, the small rituals that exist all along this sea, different languages, same gestures. Someone always saving you the sweet piece. Someone always showing up with fruit from their own tree.

Each painting in this series started as something else entirely — a fruit, a vegetable, an everyday thing. But every one of them turned out to be about a person. A parent’s hands. A neighbor’s generosity. A summer ritual repeated so many times it became part of who I am.

These aren’t paintings of food.

They’re small portraits of love, told the only way my family ever really told it, through what ended up on the table.

This is where the series begins. Ten paintings, ten memories, all of them still warm.

Each piece in this series is mixed media and oil; the first layers built with collage, stencils, acrylics and other dry media, then refined and finished in oil. I call this style abstract realism: only the main subject is painted with realistic detail, while everything around it stays loose, textured, abstracted.