About Me

I spent my youth staying in turn with each of my parents who had separated before I was born. Even at a very young age, I learned that everything I had was not mine to keep. I’d stay with one parent for a few years, build some short-lived relationships, only to uproot it all and restart my life with the other.

To cope, I would draw, and I drew a lot. In many ways, art was the oldest friend that followed me to each new place. Eventually I would become known at school as an entirely self-taught pencil artist who pursued photorealistic portraiture. With a youthful discipline, I gradually developed a highly refined technical aptitude to begin what was later to become my art career.

After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Applied Mathematics, I moved to Atlanta, GA, to start a career as a health actuary. In 2019, I decided to quit my corporate day job of nearly five years and focus on my small business, AllaPrima XYZ, as a full-time artist entrepreneur!

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About my Art

Art taught me to appreciate the transient nature of life, and acknowledge the fleeting quality of everything that is beautiful and everything that is not beautiful. My art is a reflection of my seeking harmony within turmoil; it’s an expression of melancholy with which I face my past and present. Each composition I create feels like a life of its own: in seeking harmony in compositional relationship, I find harmony in the meaning of my own life. 
 
I attended Marchutz School of Art (Aix-en-Provence, France) during college, where I discovered the rich history of art and philosophies. I am heavily influenced by masters like Hokusai, Rembrandt, Turner, Daumier, and later American Illustration artist, Bernie Fuchs—from whom I obsessively seek guidance on the relationship of light, color, composition, and execution by tirelessly studying their works.