these times we live in

These Times We Live In draws on my experience with historical costuming to create tongue-in-cheek portraits of historically attired people doing modern things. Through the lens of art history pastiche, the series celebrates today’s ordinary realities while helping us feel closer to ordinary people of days past.

  • Full-body portrait of a young woman seated at a café table. She is dressed an 1890s-style green dress, taupe-colored apron, and green-trimmed straw bonnet, with a red purse in her lap; however, she holds a hot-pink phone in one hand.

    Madeline at the Boba Café (2023)

    Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 inches.
    Private collection.

    After the style of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) paintings such as Portrait of Alphonsine Fournaise (1879) and Madame León Clapisson (1883).

  • Portrait of a young woman seated in a rocking chair against a black background, spinning with a drop spindle. She wears a 17th-century red skirt, blue doublet, and ruff, as well as blue headphones.

    Portrait of a Woman Audiobook-ing (2023)

    Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 20 inches.

    After the style of Flemish Masters such as Michiel Sweerts (1618-1664).

  • Portrait of a young woman in a 1790s-style orange gown and a straw hat trimmed with blue silk and feathers. She is standing in a modern gas station next to a blue car, holding the nozzle of a gas pump to the fuel tank.

    [Study] Comtesse de Ségur Pumping Her Own Gas (2023)

    Oil pastel on toned paper, 14 x 11 inches.

    After the style of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842), particularly Comtesse de Ségur (1785).

  • Portrait of a blonde woman (Guinevere) standing before an overgrown garden wall. She wears a medieval-style lilac gown with long, voluminous white sleeves, but holds the neon-yellow spray head of a modern watering hose in her hands.

    Guinevere Watering Her Garden (2023)

    Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 inches.
    Private collection.

    After the style of Pre-Raphaelite paintings such as John William Waterhouse’s The Soul of the Rose (1908) and Edmund Leighton’s Tristan and Isolde (1902).

  • Waist-up portrait in the sketchy style of early Henri Matisse, of a woman in traditional northern Vietnamese clothing, including a large disc-like "quai-thao" hat. Where Matisse's woman holds a folding fan, this woman holds a small electric fan.

    Woman with a Quai-Thao Hat (2023)

    Oil pastel on panel, 10 x 10 inches.
    Private collection.

    After Woman with a Hat (1905) by Henri Mattisse (1869-1954).

  • A pastiche of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", showing a dark-haired woman wearing a modern badge and lanyard and holding the E.T. film character in the crook of one arm.

    Mona (Me)Lis(s)a (2023)

    Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 8 inches.
    Private collection.

    After Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic Mona Lisa (1503-1506).

speed portraits

This series aims to capture the candid likenesses of my friends and family, as seen through my fond eyes. Each portrait is done in a single one- to two-hour sitting using acrylic on an 8 x 10 inch canvas.

  • Head-and-shoulders portrait of the artist, a young Asian woman with a square face, black tied-back hair, and glasses.

    Self-Portrait

  • Portrait of a middle-aged Asian woman with a shaved head, dressed in a brown coat and frowning at a book.

    N.C. (the artist's mother)

  • Head-and-shoulders portrait of a young white woman with curly light brown hair.

    Madeline F.

  • Head-and-shoulders profile painting of a young man with reddish-brown hair/beard and glasses.

    Chris L.

  • Head-and-shoulders portrait of a young Black woman with short curly hair and glasses.

    Kristen G.

  • Head-and-shoulders portrait of a young white woman with dark brown bobbed hair and glasses.

    Maddi

  • Head-and-shoulders portrait of a young Asian man with short black hair and glasses. His hand is raised to adjust his glasses, in the process showing off a blue cyborg-like gauntlet.

    Justin (the artist's brother)

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