Trash or Treasure Series

Trash or Treasure focuses on everyday urban scenes and their often-overlooked objects. These include dumpsters, water bottles, graffiti, piles of belongings, and discarded materials that show evidence of recent and past activity. These remnants carry signs of decay, displacement, and overconsumption, turning ordinary streets into quiet snapshots of human presence.

For the past eight years, I have lived in the Greater Atlanta metropolitan area, where I have witnessed the visible effects of the housing crisis and the constant movement of families and individuals forced to relocate. I have also moved many times in recent years. Through these transitions, I’ve encountered piles of garbage and abandoned personal items—objects that suggest instability and transition. I paint what residents and passersby leave behind as a form of social documentation. The series moves viewers through my migrations: from specific residential sites and dumpsters, to transitional environments such as street corners and roads, and finally to intimate outdoor still lifes of objects left along one’s travels.

The absence of figures in these representational paintings allows viewers to imagine the stories behind the discarded items and graffiti. Through dynamic mixtures of muted color palettes, I aim to create atmospheric perspective and evoke mood within these scenes. I work in oil on cradled wood panels ranging from 20 × 20 to 30 × 40 inches. I use textured brushwork and palette knife strokes to emphasize movement, energy, and activity within the environment. I am especially drawn to the way light interacts with worn surfaces, revealing unexpected beauty in neglected objects and spaces.

In 2nd Chance, I depict a discarded bag found beneath an underpass that I encountered in downtown Atlanta. Although the logo on the bag did not actually read ‘2nd Chance,’ it appeared that way at first glance. Combined with the light beyond the overpass and the spray-painted construction arrows, the scene became symbolic of the possibility of a brighter path ahead after a fall.

This series serves as a historical record of contemporary life in the Greater Atlanta area, capturing traces of displacement alongside moments of unexpected beauty found in the aftermath of societal neglect.