"My paintings explore a personal and globally shared immigrant experience through collage-like compositions that incorporate and combine familiar forms that speak to common journeys and a yearning for sense of place and belonging. Using a layered approach, I depict everyday objects derived from an ever-expanding personal iconography. Familiar and recognizable forms are chosen for striking recognition, symbolic possibilities, and a capacity for meaning-making among diverse viewers. I enjoy combining and rearranging objects and decorative elements, sometimes spontaneously and at other times in a deliberate manner, to produce emotionally resonant narratives. The collaged images and words represent a limitless cultural mapping, driven by memory, reflection, and a longing for personal and historical meaning. This mapping is represented in works like All Things Big and Small (2022), where I incorporate multiple objects that hover above a single style family home. Like a starling murmuration, the collective symbols form a single-like organism that floats lyrically as a visual representation of memories and experiences. In this painting, the idea of home is further explored as a place for building memories, manifested through the dense collection of symbols within the composition." - Jose Arenas