Connect What is your favorite type of art to create?

Oil painting, because it first captivated me as a child and was how I fell in love with art to begin with. Rembrandt and Modigliani paintings are the first of my curiosity. Though initially intimidated by the medium, I devoted years to graphite and charcoal until I developed a deeper understanding of light and form. Oil painting then revealed itself to me as the ultimate vehicle for storytelling, a medium that can be pushed as far as the artist desires, limitless in both expression and magic.

Where do you find inspiration?

I draw inspiration from lived experience, particularly the trials of war, which profoundly shaped my perspective on beauty, fragility, and the human condition. Equally influential is my lifelong devotion to art history, whose great masters continually challenge and inspire me. My life has been dedicated to artistic expression, and through painting I seek to translate experience, memory, and reverence for the past into something enduring.

What would you do with $25,000?

I would use the $25,000 as a catalyst to deepen and expand my artistic practice, allowing me to pursue my work with greater freedom, scale, and intention. My aim as an artist is not merely to create, but to produce work that invites reflection, provokes thought, and leaves a lasting impression. This support would help me devote myself more fully to that pursuit and broaden the reach of the ideas my work seeks to communicate.